{"id":60185,"date":"2024-11-13T19:23:27","date_gmt":"2024-11-14T00:23:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=60185"},"modified":"2024-11-13T19:23:36","modified_gmt":"2024-11-14T00:23:36","slug":"deputies-break-up-cockfighting-ring-at-lehigh-acres-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2024\/11\/deputies-break-up-cockfighting-ring-at-lehigh-acres-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Deputies break up cockfighting ring at Lehigh Acres home"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Lee County Sheriff’s Office says a man was running a cockfighting ring in the backyard of a home on Texas Road in Lehigh Acres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Detectives found six hens and five roosters, a training dummy and chicken ring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LCSO says they also found training mitts, a weight sling, a digital scale, rubber bands, surgical tape and more at 127 Texas Road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A police report says 54-year-old Carlos Antonio Alvarez, “trained, owned, and bred a domestic animal for cockfighting.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neighbors down the road say it’s normal to hear roosters crow in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Devin McDonald says, “I hear roosters around, but I never knew where they were, so I didn’t expect all that to happen.”<\/p>\n\n\n

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Sam Garcia also lives on the same street and heard the roosters too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lee County Domestic Animal Services received a tip about the potential cockfighting ring and met up with LCSO a few days later at the home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In body cam video from LCSO, you can see the wire cages the roosters were kept in and the ring the animals fought in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Detectives say they were being trained to fight and video cameras, from inside the house, they say, show a rooster prepared for a fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When LCSO arrested Alvarez, he surrendered the animals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garcia says, “I seen them putting them all in cages.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She didn’t know what was happening at the house only that she had seen some of the chickens before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Only seen two. They had got loose. They were running down here.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the police report, a doctor says the animals injuries are “consistent with breeding for cockfights.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a statement Sheriff Carmine Marceno says,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It sickens me that people will use animals for entertainment purposes. I promise to always protect those who cannot defend themselves, and that includes animals of all kind.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carmine Marceno, Lee County Sheriff<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jail records show Alvarez is out on bond, following his arrest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Lee County Sheriff’s Office says a man was running a cockfighting ring in the backyard of a home on Texas Road in Lehigh Acres. Detectives found six hens and… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":60187,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,32],"tags":[2868],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60185"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60185"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60188,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60185\/revisions\/60188"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}