Aficionados of Cockfighting Drawn by Gambling, Blood

Like any good fight promoter, Juan Valadez put the word out in advance.

He called a few friends and said to pass it on. Then he set to work getting the arena ready, calling in a referee and making arrangements for the food and alcohol vendor.

But, when fight day arrived three Saturdays ago, even Valadez, 25, a lifelong follower of cockfights from Texas to Mexico to California, was surprised by how many people showed up. More than 100 people crowded into his back yard in Sun Valley.

They lined their rooster cages against the fence and began the ritual: making wagers and waiting their turn in the pit. Some carried velvet-lined lock boxes filled with the razor-sharp polished steel equipment of the game. All but two, it would turn out, were there to enjoy what is often regarded as one of the cruelest of blood sports, cockfighting.

“I told a few people and other people told other people and so many people showed up it got out of hand,” Valadez said last week. “It just got too big.”

Two Were Not Fans

Valadez, of course, was speaking in retrospect. Call it Monday morning cockfighting. By then he knew that two of the men drawn to his Goss Street back yard Feb. 20 were not cockfight aficionados and were not there to bet on roosters or cheer at the illegal battles. They were undercover Los Angeles police officers.

Before the day of cockfighting was half-a-dozen matches old, the two officers were joined by other police waiting outside. In the raid, 95 gamecocks were seized and 88 people arrested. Most of the people were given misdemeanor citations and released. But many stood by and watched as their prized possessions were carted away.

“That was the most upsetting part for these people,” said Officer Peter Barrera, one of the North Hollywood Division vice officers who infiltrated the arena. “They were not at all happy about seeing their birds taken away.”

Largest Valley Raid

The cockfight raid is believed to have been the largest ever in the San Fernando Valley, according to police and city Department of Animal Regulation officers. Although authorities are not sure that its size is indicative of an increase of cockfighting in the area, they said that the fight--and the subsequent theft last week of 29 fighting cocks from an animal-regulation shelter--underlines the popularity of the sport here.

It used to be that small, largely impromptu gatherings were the mark of cockfights in the Valley, authorities said. But, in the last year, police noted, they more frequently have come upon better organized fights crowded with dozens of rooster owners and spectators. Indeed, the West Valley Animal Shelter is now jammed with more than 300 cocks seized in the past six months.

“Cockfighting is part of the culture of many of the people in our community and it is very popular,” said Lt. Steve Moede, head of North Hollywood vice. “It is hard to say whether it is on the increase or is just becoming more visible.”

Valadez, who faces a fine of $100 to $250 and probation of up to 12 months for his part in the Feb. 20 fight, said the larger-than-expected crowd at his back-yard fight made it virtually impossible for neighbors and subsequently police not to notice. He said it illustrates the popularity of cockfighting, despite its illegality in California.

“I think it shows a lot of people want this,” he said. “There are a lot of cockfighters around--in the Valley and the whole United States. It is growing.”

Across the country, cockfighting attracts people from all cultures and social levels, according to local authorities and the Humane Society of the United States.

Although cockfighting is a felony in 10 states, it is legal in four states, of which Arizona is the closest to California. There are national newsletters, magazines and breeding and fighting associations. Detective Ron Ryerson, the LAPD’s expert on cockfighting, said there are several local gamecock clubs with members in the Valley as well as other parts of the city. He said breeding and training of fighting cocks is prevalent in rural areas of Sunland and Sun Valley.

In the Valley, authorities said, cockfighting is mostly a clandestine activity. Fights usually are promoted by word of mouth. Occasionally, as in the Valadez case, police come across pamphlets advertising a fight. Police said some of the clubs circulate schedules with places and times and those places are invariably in the primarily Latino areas in the northeast, for in the Valley the sport is largely an import from Mexico.

“Cockfighting is a very big thing in Mexico,” said Ryerson. “It is legal and wide-open, with gambling, alcohol, everything. So what you have is a large number of people who live here who have brought this with them as part of their culture.”

Although cockfighting is largely a working man’s pastime, authorities said that a lot of money is invested in it. Gamecocks can be worth hundreds of dollars and bets on individual fights can run even higher. When police raided Valadez’ back-yard arena, they found the banker, the keeper of the bets, with a $4,000 wad of cash stuffed in one pocket and a gun in another. And the fights had just begun.

Size Not Typical

Although the raid drew a lot of attention to cockfighting in the Valley, authorities questioned whether the size of the fight was typical. It was so large and unwieldy that it was bound to be busted, they said.

“The big fights stand out,” said Lt. Bob Pena of the Department of Animal Regulation. “They are hard to keep secret. But the smaller fights are more prevalent--probably more prevalent than we know.”

Before vice officers Pete Barrera and Arnie Rios walked into Valadez’s back yard, other non-Latino officers drove by the house and could hear men cheering and roosters crowing. Cars were parked up and down the street and pedestrian traffic was thick. Some men, apparently the owners of roosters that had lost, were seen leaving with blood-spattered shirts.

“We didn’t have to go in to know what was going on,” said Moede.

But when Barrera and Rios did saunter into the back yard, they entered unnoticed, police said. No one questioned them or even attempted to charge them admission. Everyone was too busy watching a fight in progress.

This belies what police said is the norm--that cockfighting in the Valley is a closed circle, where uninvited strangers are carefully questioned, must pass cockfighting terminology tests and even then are often expelled. The secrecy makes the task of law enforcement difficult. Vice officers said they believe that cockfights take place in the Valley on almost any weekend or holiday. However, police raids usually come months apart.

“The people involved in this are quite careful,” said Sgt. Wayne Woolway of Foothill Division vice. “They are very aware it is illegal. If you are in the circle, word of a fight spreads quite fast. If you are not, you aren’t going to know about it.”

Infiltration Difficult

That fact frustrates police efforts to infiltrate fights, usually a prerequisite to making arrests. Most often, the Valley’s vice units can react only to reports of fights in progress, as was the case of the raid of Valadez’s back yard.

A cockfight takes place in a round, dirt-floored pit usually 15 feet across.

The matches are usually between birds of equal weight. The handlers, usually the roosters’ owners, taunt the two birds by holding them beak-to-beak. Then they are dropped, or pitted, and the fight begins. A match usually lasts only a minute or so before one of the birds quits or is fatally cut by the sharp steel “slashers” or “gaffs” attached to the opponent’s legs with electrical tape.

A fight can end three ways: when a rooster is killed, when a handler gives up or when a bird refuses to attack four times.

“The winners get to take their birds home alive,” said Sgt. Ralph Krusey, a Van Nuys Division vice officer. “The losers usually get to take their birds to the barbecue.”

A gamecock won’t be put into a pit until it is almost a year old. By then its comb has been “dubbed” or trimmed because it can easily be cut by an attacker, and the spurs on its legs have been clipped so battle armor can be attached. The bird also will have been trained to attack other roosters in various exercises and sparring matches. One technique is to taunt the birds with a device made of rooster feathers wrapped around a handle.

“It trains them to go after another rooster’s feathers,” said Sgt. Woolway, who noted that, in the Valley, fighting cocks are trained in a variety of ways and places: individually or in large groups and in suburban back yards, garages, mobile-home parks and rural properties.

Honor at Stake

When a gamecock is ready to fight, the handler puts his own reputation into the pit with his fighter, authorities said. As writer Harry Crews noted in an Esquire magazine article in the late 1970s: “When they (handlers) bring cocks to a pit, they bring along their own breeding skill and feeding skill and handling skill. Perhaps most of all, they bring their own integrity. I don’t expect many people to sympathize with it or even understand it, but when a man’s Kelso or Blueface or Gray or Whitehackle or Allen Roundhead quits . . ., he suffers profound humiliation.

“You add the drinking and wagering going on and you have a very emotional situation.”

The skill, emotion and gambling are all part of the attraction of gamecock fighting, authorities said.

Gamecock owners say their birds are natural fighters, and that they would fight in or out of a pit, with or without training.

“It’s in their blood,” Valadez said last week.

Accusations that the sport is cruel seem ironic to Valadez. He said some of his own roosters were among those confiscated by police during the raid at his home. He does not expect to get them back. Instead, as is routine, the roosters will be held by the Department of Animal Regulation until Valadez’ case is closed. Then authorities will seek a judge’s approval to destroy the birds.

That doesn’t sit well with Valadez.

“We are told it’s illegal to fight cocks here because of cruelty,” he said. “But then all they are going to do is kill them. That’s more cruelty. What does that prove?”