A fowl of the law
Confiscated chickens doing time at county jail
Nearly 200 roosters are roosting at Sevier County jail after authorities raided a suspected cockfighting operation Saturday.
Sheriff Robert Gentry said the fowl will remain there until a court decides where to place them. The birds are being kept in wire cages and cared for by jail inmates, he added.
The raid netted more than 100 arrests, the Texarkana Gazette reported. Warrants were reportedly served by the Sevier County sheriff’s office, De Queen Police Department, South Central Drug Task Force, Arkansas State Police, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, the U.S. Forestry Agency, the U.S. Wildlife Service and the Department of Homeland Security.
A tweet from Greg Rae, colonel of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s law enforcement division, mentioned U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but Gentry said that agency was not involved and that the investigation was not racially motivated.
Only one of the arrestees will be detained, Gentry said, because of an unrelated search warrant from a decade earlier.
Still, the Arkansas United Community Coalition, a Springdale-based immigrant support group, said it would offer legal assistance to immigrant families affected by the raid.