Laura Maloney had never seen anything quite like the scene at
the trucking company. Dozens of cars were parked, some with their
motors still running, some with radios left on or doors flung
open. Music blared from a portable stereo. Guns, cell phones,
pagers and keys lay scattered on the ground where their owners
had dropped them. In the center of it all, generator-powered electric
floodlights were trained onto a square wooden pit. It was about
12 feet by 12 feet, surrounded by chairs, the inside carpeted
and marked with tape lines dividing off two corners, and spattered
all around with fresh blood.
"It was clearly a professional dog ring," says Maloney, the
executive director of the Louisiana Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA).
Earlier that Saturday, Feb. 1, the property owner, Donald
Beaman of Slidell, called 911 to alert the New Orleans Police
Department that strangers were again on his land, which is located
on a desolate stretch of eastern New Orleans. Beaman says a
neighbor had previously seen people "having a party" at the
trucking company at night, and had called him that evening to
tell him the trespassers were back. "They had evidently used
our place before," says Beaman, owner of the Transway Select
trucking company. When cruisers from the NOPD's 7th District
made their way down a remote gravel road on 4301 Highland Ave.,
they found several people gathered behind the shield of some
empty tractor-trailers. Everybody ran.
By 8 p.m., Maloney and other SPCA officers showed up, and
the police had rounded up several muddy, scratched-up people
in the surrounding swampland. Others had managed to get away,
many with pit bull terriers, says Maloney.
Maloney and the SPCA's chief humane officer, Kathryn Destreza,
helped the police identify how items found at the scene would
typically be used in an organized dogfight -- which generally
involves pit bull terriers trained to fight to the death. There
were two washtubs filled with soapy water and sponges, the type
used to wash off dogs before a fight to ensure that owners don't
cheat by applying caustic agents to the animals' skin. Other
items included a hanging scale, used to weigh dogs before a
match. Vaseline, vinegar, baking soda and an IV starter kit
and solution, used to treat injured dogs afterwards. A plastic
"break stick" used to separate dogs during a fight.
More overt clues that people may have been betting on an illegal
dogfight included more than $5,000 in cash, a scarred-up pit
bull, leashes, pet collars and dog kennels. And, of course,
the bloodstained pit.
Sixteen people were arrested and charged with dogfighting,
flight from an officer and criminal trespass. "It was amazing,"
says Maloney, who assumed this was a solid case. Because dogfighters
operate under a tight veil of secrecy, the arrests on Feb. 1
and the evidence seized amounted to what police considered the
largest dogfighting bust in state history. Maloney says those
involved were elated. "We felt all the evidence was there."
The New Orleans District Attorney's office didn't find the
evidence so compelling. George Bourgeois, the assistant district
attorney and former NOPD chief who screens evidence for trial,
decided in late April that because there were no eyewitnesses
willing to admit they had been present at a dogfight, there
wasn't enough evidence to pursue those charges. He dropped all
of the charges -- including the counts of trespassing and flight
from an officer.
Maloney was stunned when she heard the news weeks later from
a reporter calling her office for comment. "I want to understand
why this wasn't evidence," she says incredulously. "A dog with
scars on its face and legs? A syringe with medicine? Scales,
washtubs, old and fresh blood? The pit?"
BOURGEOIS SAYS HE CANNOT DISCUSS THE CASE. District Attorney
Eddie Jordan could not be reached for comment, but has planned
a July 8 meeting with Maloney and with NOPD Lt. Heather Kouts,
the police department's liaison with the SPCA.
Property owner Donald Beaman says he heard about the dropped
charges on the news and couldn't figure out why the other counts
were also refused. "They were on private property. They should
have been charged with something," he says. "Now they can go
free to do this on someone else's property."
Owning or fighting dogs is a felony and being present at such
an event is a misdemeanor, making dogfighting laws in Louisiana
among the strictest in the nation. The state law relative to
dogfighting, RS:14:102.5, makes it a felony to possess or own
"a dog exhibiting injuries or alterations consistent with dogfighting
... together with evidence that the dog has been used or is
intended for use in dogfighting."
The SPCA's veterinary clinic determined that the injuries
on the pit bull seized Feb. 1 were consistent with dogfighting.
Since dogs that have been trained to fight are considered a
danger to the community, and shelters will not adopt them out,
the animal was euthanized.
Among those arrested that night was Cleveland Harris Jr.,
then 42. Harris had told police that he had not been involved
in a dogfight on Feb. 1, but had been on the property earlier
that day doing work for Beaman. He said he had come back to
retrieve his truck that night, and happened upon the gathering.
Beaman told police that he hadn't asked Harris to work for him
that day.
Later that month, the police and SPCA obtained a search warrant
and raided Harris' house in eastern New Orleans, seizing 19
pit bull terriers, an animal treadmill (often used among dogfighters
to get the animals into fighting shape), breaking sticks, dogfighting
publications, and other items including homemade videotapes
of dogfights in action. All the pit bulls were euthanized, except
a puppy too young to be trained to fight. That case is still
pending; Harris could not be reached for comment.
A FEW DAYS AFTER JORDAN'S OFFICE REFUSED the charges against
the 16 people, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS)
came down to Gretna to hold a regional conference on dogfighting
for law enforcement agents. The conference had long been planned,
but it coincided with the news about the dropped charges. Some
of the speakers referred to the recent event as an unfortunate
example of what can happen when prosecutors don't know about
the type of evidence that points to dogfighting.
At the conference, HSUS West Coast Regional Director and animal
fighting expert Eric Sakach spoke to an audience of about 80
police officers, animal control officers and other agents, including
a representative from Jordan's office. He showed a slide depicting
the type of pit found Feb. 1. "If you go into a fight after
the fact and if you see a box built like this with carpet on
the floor, and these lines" -- he pointed to white lines marking
off the corners of the pit -- "you can see this is an arena,
and tell the jury how it's used. It's all circumstantial, but
you can make for a compelling case." He shows more slides: of
scales, breaking sticks, washtubs, a wooden pit smeared with
blood. "This is where logic comes into play," he says. "By themselves,
these things might not mean anything. But all together, this
means dogfighting."
The New Orleans Police Department -- whose officers had worked
through the night to chase fleeing suspects through the swamps,
make arrests, seize evidence and impound 22 vehicles -- would
not comment on the incident and the dropped charges. They did
agree to discuss the dogfighting conference, attended by several
NOPD officers. "It was pretty helpful," says Officer Linda Howard
of the 4th District in Algiers. "They told us the different
things to look for and how to handle the investigation."
Another speaker at the conference, Det. David Hunt of the
Franklin County Sheriff's Office in Columbus, Ohio, told the
audience about the types of additional arrests and seizures
that are often made by officers pursuing charges of dogfighting.
"Peripheral crimes associated with dogfighting are narcotics,
gambling and firearms," said Hunt, who began going after dogfighters
in February of 2001 and quickly learned that if he could get
a search warrant for suspicion of dogfighting, he would often
find evidence of other criminal activity. "These are the little
perks I got out of dogfighting cases," he said, ticking off
examples of things he's seized in dogfighters' homes: large
quantities of narcotics, cash, illegal firearms. "We're getting
more bang for our buck. If I can get two arrests for the price
of one, I'm going to."
That kind of situation illustrates why law enforcement agents
need to vigorously pursue dogfighting cases, according to HSUS
regional coordinator Jay Sabatucci. "We'd love to see dogfighters
go to jail like the criminals they are," he says.
"These guys are very well-organized and they're dangerous.
They want you to think they're just your good-ole-boy neighbor,
but they'll kill you," he says. "You can get thousands of dollars
at fights; there's always drugs, there's always gambling, and
one of the things we're trying to convince the police is that
they can get into other crime situations because these are violent,
dangerous people."
Maloney says that despite the recent setback, she's optimistic
that the NOPD, SPCA and district attorney's office will eventually
be able to coordinate with one another to ensure successful
prosecutions of dogfighting. The NOPD and Louisiana State Police
have both assigned officers to act as liaisons with the SPCA,
she says, and she's looking forward to this week's planned meeting
with Jordan. "Better communication," she says, "would be a good
thing."
