PROVO, Utah — Seventeen people, including one juvenile, were arrested by Provo police on Sunday after officers say they were alerted to possible organized fights involving roosters.
FOX 13 News has obtained court documents for five of the people arrested on Sunday. Hector Manuel Castillegjos Santos, 30, Daniel Martinez Velasco, 38, Gerardo Pino Zubia, 18, Maximiliano Morales, 35, and Cesar Adir Galeana Lopez, 33, all face a charge of game fowl fighting.
According to the court documents in the case, during the course of a welfare check, officers were alerted to the possible organized fights at a home near 1215 West 600 South. When police looked into the address of the home, they found a previous report of animal fighting back in 2019.
Police obtained a warrant to fly a drone over the property and, during the flight, noticed several individuals in the southern part of the property going in and out of a shed. The footage also showed several vehicles in a parking area and what appeared to be people loading cages in and out of vehicles.
An officer then parked near the property and said he could see flashing lights coming from the shed and heard chickens crowing.
A separate search warrant was obtained by police to enter the property and during the search, seven people were found on the property. Those people told police that 50 to 100 people had been present but fled when police arrived.
Outside agencies were called, and six more people were captured in a nearby park, with one being a juvenile. A vehicle leaving the property was also stopped with five more individuals inside. A total of 17 people were arrested, according to police.
A search of the property found more than 50 dead roosters in trailers, trash cans, and bags. There was also fresh blood on the chickens, as well as more than 100 live roosters and several hundred hens.
Police say the dead chickens were found in a large room with benches, score cards, and a winning board with a list of names on it. An adjacent room had several bottles of liquid with needles in them, which investigators inferred were to make the roosters more aggressive.
In the vehicle that was stopped with five people inside, there was further evidence of participation in the fights. Officers say inside they found razor claws for the roosters, more aggression-inducing drugs, and two roosters in a box.
Michael Scott was driving by the property on 600 South on Sunday.
“There was just a cop sitting out front,” said Scott, whose dad lives a few doors down. "I thought they were just patrolling the streets.”
He later discovered they were likely monitoring what had turned into the scene of a criminal investigation.
“We haven’t really seen anything in Utah of this size in the past decade, so it’s really disheartening to hear about it,” said Guin Schuster with the Humane Society of Utah.
Scott felt that loss, having farm animals of his own.
“They’ve all got personalities — even all my goats have personalities — so to see something like that happen, to just be discarded,” Scott said. “Something that’s here to sustain life. We should take care of it.”
Seventeen people now face game fowl fighting charges.
“Unfortunately, Utah is the only western state where cockfighting, on the first offense, is not a felony,” Schuster said.
Schuster says it takes three offenses for cockfighting to become a felony, so they would like to see stricter laws be considered in the future.
“We want Utah to be a humane state and not tolerate this type of animal cruelty,” said Schuster.
