SHARK Shuts Down Ohio Cockfight
From All-Creatures.org Animal Rights/Vegan Activist Strategies Articles Archive

FROM SHARK Showing Animals Respect and Kindness
February 2021

A major cockfight that was supposed to happen this past Saturday in Ohio was shutdown by SHARK.

Stock photo from Pxfuel

This happened in Lawrence County, Ohio - the same location where cockfighters brutally attacked SHARK President Steve Hindi and drove another SHARK Investigator off the road after they repeatedly rammed his vehicle four weeks ago. Last Saturday we showed these violent, animal abusing criminals that SHARK backs down to no one.

Here’s how it went down: We had two teams in OH that night. One team was near the property where the cockfight was going to happen, outside Waterloo, Ohio. The second team was at the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office headquarters, in Ironton, Ohio. At around 6 PM, and once the first team confirmed there was going to be a fight, the second team walked into the sheriff's headquarters and reported the cockfight. Shockingly, the Sheriff’s department resisted sending anyone out to the site!

SHARK investigator Janet Enoch reports the cockfight at the headquarters of the Lawrence County Sheriff's Office. Deputy Jeremy Hanshaw, maskless, was more concerned about our cameras than in felony criminal behavior.

Given the refusal of the police to do their job, we put out an emergency action alert asking for caring people to call the sheriff’s office and demand they take action. We gratefully thank all of you who responded! As the calls came in, the sheriff’s staff still resisted! A shift change occurred at 8 PM. The new commander came out to talk to us at 8:30, and after a brief discussion, he said he would go to the site himself.

During the almost three hours between our first alerting the Sheriff’s office, and the arrival of the new on-duty commander, the cockfighters got word of our efforts. They shut down and fled, almost certainly before the fighting even started. Given that shutting down cruel cockfights and keeping birds from being killed is our main goal, this is a major victory. As for the cockfighters, they lost a lot of money.

Unfortunately, there were no arrests, because they had fled long before police arrived. We obviously need to expose the corruption within the Lawrence County Sheriff's Office. That said, we believe that not everyone in the sheriff's office are corrupt, so SHARK president Steve Hindi made a video right in the sheriff's office asking the good officers to contact us, anonymously if needed, with information that may help our investigation.

Cockfights are illegal across the US - in all fifty states - by both state and federal laws. These are criminal organizations that also act as a conduit for illegal drugs, weapons, gangs and prostitution. And while we would prefer they all spend time in jail, we also know that police action may take weeks or months and in the meantime, thousands of birds will die horrible deaths. As we’ve also seen in Clay County KY, and in Lawrence County, sometimes the police are either in on the cockfighting, or they simply refuse to do the right thing. Therefore, shutting cockfights down by exposing them is the most effective way to save lives.

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