Another Cock Block–Too Bad, Cops Didn’t Bust a Dogfighting Ring

Ready for that word? Here it is: Cocks.

Funny, right? We can hear you snickering from here. Go ahead, get it out of your system, we’ll wait.

Feel better? Great. Let’s get to it, shall we?

The cocks we’ll be writing about today aren’t the kind that . . . well, you know. They’re the kind that cluck and peck and crow when the sun comes up. They’re kind that some folks like to breed and force to fight to the death with little razor-sharp hooks strapped to their legs.

Cockfighting is kind of a big deal here in the Inland Empire. Just this week, police joined the Inland Valley Humane Society & SPCA in busting a sizable cockfighting operation in Ontario.

The bust went down Sunday at a rural property in the 13000 block of Cucamonga Avenue. Investigators found about 1,000 gamecocks there along with tons paraphernalia they say is associated with cockfighting.

When law enforcement officials mention paraphernalia associated with cockfighting, they usually mean those little razors—called “gaffs”—that are tied to the legs of the cocks, so they inflict more damage on their opponents. Authorities also found training equipment and wager cards during the bust, according to a Humane Society statement.

Two men—Antonio Cacayorin Mendoza, 57, of Chino and Dominador Oposcolo Soliven, 55, of Hemet—were arrested during the bust.

Three others were cited for being spectators; one of those men—Oliver Lopez, 55, of Menifee—is a civil engineer who works for San Bernardino County. A second man—Virgilio Wong, 61, of Rancho Cucamonga—works for the Los Angeles County Assessor’s Office.

While Humane Society investigators call Sunday’s bust one of the biggest they’d ever seen, the fact that the bust was necessary in the first place wasn’t all that surprising.

In the last 12 month, authorities have broken up more than a dozen cockfighting rings in San Bernardino and Riverside counties. Yucaipa, Fontana, Hesperia, Norco, Jurupa Valley, Ontario and the list goes on. Chris Lee, documentary filmmaker and spokesman for the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office, said cockfighting is on the rise in the Inland Empire.

“From what I’ve seen and from what I’ve heard, there has been an increase (in Inland Empire cockfighting),” he says. “You’re seeing it in the northern end of San Bernardino. You’re seeing it in Yucaipa, you’re seeing it in some of the rural areas out in Chino.”

And Deputy District Attorney Debbie Ploghaus said it’s those rural areas—of which there are plenty in both San Bernardino and Riverside counties—that make for good cockfightin‘. It’s not uncommon for folks to keep farm-legal animals on their rural properties, which makes it easier to hide a gaggle of fighting cocks, she said (though not using those words).

And it’s also common for cockfights to attract a certain criminal element, law enforcement experts say. A lot of it has to do with the fact that the events are illegal to begin with, but it’s the nature of the events that concern police.

“Anytime you involve gambling—especial illegal gambling—you’re going to be dealing with people who carry large amounts of money,” says Ontario Police Cpl. Bill Russell. “And those kinds of people have a tendency to carry weapons with them.”

You also see drug activity and other kinds of animal cruelty, like dog fighting, Russell says.

Ploghaus says it’s not so likely that there are more cockfighting rings in the Inland Empire. She thinks what’s happening is more people are prone to report the activity, which leads to more cockfighting arrests and busts, which in turn leads to more news stories.

“I think people are more aware now,” she says.

But just because people are more apt to report cockfights doesn’t mean prosecutors get to throw the book at the guys running the show. Your standard cockfighting arrest (if there is such a thing) calls for a misdemeanor charge, Ploghaus says. Occasionally, when investigators are able to catch cockfighters in the act, and witness unreasonable cruelty to the animals, prosecutors can file felony charges.

Which makes cockfighting different than, say, dogfighting, she says. A standard dogfighting charge nets a felony charge. And why? Both sports pit animals against each other in a bloody, brutal fight to the death. Do dogs somehow warrant more legal heft than cocks?

Yeah, pretty much, according to Ploghaus.

“For some reason people are more OK with the idea of cocks fighting to the death than they are with dogs,” she says.

And it’s those misdemeanors that make it tough for prosecutors to get anything to stick to people who run cockfighting rings.

“They just don’t care,” Ploghaus says. “They pay their fines, they serve their probation and they go get their roosters and go do it again somewhere else.”

San Bernardino District Attorney Mike Ramos and Senator Bill Emerson (R-Hemet) worked together on a bill earlier this year that would double the fine for holding or participating in a cockfighting event, which would make the now $5,000 fine $10,000. The bill—dubbed SB 1145—has not yet been passed as California law.

In the meantime, officials are wrapping up the Ontario cockfighting bust and are gearing up from the next one, which can only be a few months away.

And as for Mendoza and Soliven? The guys arrested Sunday in Ontario? They were booked on suspicion of misdemeanor penal code violations. Neither is any longer in police custody. Ontario police have not yet forwarded their case to the District Attorney’s Office, meaning no formal charges have yet been filed.

Check “The Watch Dog” by Jesse B. Gill every Friday for the latest (and greatest) behind-the-scenes crime coverage in the Inland Empire.