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Cops bust up cockfighting ring

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by The Big Ragu, Feb 10, 2014.

  1. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/09/justice/new-york-cockfighting-bust/?hpt=hp_t2

    They found 3,000 birds. For matches, they inject them with PEDs. ... charge admission, sell alcohol. ... people bet.

    I get the fun of drinking and betting on things, but I will never understand how there are enough people who are OK with that kind of cruelty, and create an underground culture around it. It sickens me.

    I also wonder how many underground things like cockfighting rings are around me that I have no clue about.
     
  2. 93Devil

    93Devil Well-Known Member

    That is a painfully bad lede.

    You live in New York. Outside of Vegas, you live in the mecca of weird and crazy. The older I get, the more I realize I should never be shocked.
     
  3. MisterCreosote

    MisterCreosote Well-Known Member

    Seriously. Everyone involved in that one should be fucking fired on the spot.
     
  4. WriteThinking

    WriteThinking Well-Known Member

    The sad thing is, this bust did not save or "rescue" 3,000 birds.

    All are likely to be euthanized, because they cannot coexist with other chickens. There will be no adopting them out or placing them in garden-variety barnyards or on regular farms.
     
  5. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    It's a bad lede, but did law enforcement give that the name of the operation? If they did, then there needs to be some sort of explanation. If it's just the writer trying to be cute, then yeah, fire them.
     
  6. Kato

    Kato Well-Known Member

  7. Football_Bat

    Football_Bat Well-Known Member

    In Oklahoma, they call this "Saturday night."
     
  8. MisterCreosote

    MisterCreosote Well-Known Member

    Apparently, it was the name of the operation:

    http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/operation-angry-birds-busts-new-york-cockfighting-ring-prosecutor-says-n26071

    Still, this lede is a good example of what someone who is not a hack would write (the "savage" editorializing aside):

     
  9. Inky_Wretch

    Inky_Wretch Well-Known Member

    I went to a cockfighting pit nearly 20 years ago for a story. It was wild. Guys were betting $5,000 per match. You'd see a well-dressed guy haggling over a bet with a guy in ripped overalls. And beer was free with your $50 admission.
     
  10. Oggiedoggie

    Oggiedoggie Well-Known Member

    A few years ago, my wife and I were asked to take care of her uncle's chickens while he was gone for a week. He had more than a hundred chickens, mainly Rhode Island Reds and Longhorns, separated into pens. While we were moving from one pen to another, a rooster ran from one pen into another and attacked another rooster. The smaller rooster died before we could get them apart.

    Many mature roosters will fight each other, naturally.

    The supply of mature roosters far outweighs the demand just about everywhere. Thousands of day-old male chicks are destroyed by egg producers because they are of no use.

    And most meat chickens are slaughtered before they are 14 weeks old, so roosters going at each other isn't much of a problem on those farms.

    I know folks who raise chickens who keep them almost as pets and love them for more than eating, but the life of most chickens is pretty miserable.

    I think that it's wrong and cruel to intentionally let and encourage roosters to fight. It's worse to make money off of it.

    But my attitude toward chickens in general is pretty inconsistent. I eat them at least weekly. And, now that my wife's uncle is gone, we don't have an inexpensive source of fairly humane-raised chicken. So, I usually buy conventional chicken and don't think much about how it got there.

    Perhaps because I've been around a few chickens and not really bonded with any I'll still cook them up. I know a few folks who won't.
     
  11. Liut

    Liut Well-Known Member

    I was once hosting a radio show in the South and made the oft-handed opine cockfighting was cruel.

    The phones lit up and I was roasted by callers, in an on-air sense, for an hour.
     
  12. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    Needs a lawyer:

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
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