GILLETT — When about 150 gamblers and blood-sport fans gathered in the brush for an illegal cockfight here recently, not even local folks who live close by had a clue.

“No cars ever came through here. I didn’t know nothing about it. I never heard a thing,” said Edward Williams, 52, who lives about 100 yards from the site off FM 887 where the fight was staged.

It only was after police cars started rolling in, followed by some startling booms, that Williams realized something heavy was going down.

Within minutes, panicked strangers were running out of the brush, followed shortly after by police with tracking hounds.

“A guy jumped up, down by my gate, and he said, ‘Help me.’” Williams said. “I said, ‘Man you ain’t going in my house, so he ran on through. The dogs lost his scent here in the driveway.”

The well-orchestrated bust of the cockfight, an hour southeast of San Antonio, was one of the largest in South Texas in recent years.

When all the running, chasing and towing of cars ended long after midnight, police had seized 22 vehicles, five handguns, an assault rifle and $37,020 in cash — not to mention a bunch of roosters, the lucky survivors.

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Karnes County Sheriff Dwayne Villanueva said 32 people were arrested by federal agents on immigration detainers. Another 28 were booked into the county jail on charges including evading arrest and engaging in organized criminal activity.

About 70 others were cited for gambling, a misdemeanor, and allowed to go home, some with their birds.

“I feel we caught about 95 percent of the participants. A few got away,” Villanueva said.

It’s a state jail felony in Texas for someone to have a rooster involved in a cockfight or to make money off the event. It’s a misdemeanor to host a cockfight or train a fighting cock, and to be a spectator at a cockfight.

With advance intelligence of the illicit cockfight, a team led by the Sheriff’s Office with about 100 officers from federal, state and local agencies was deployed outside Gillett, a rural community in northern Karnes County.

When the flash bangs went off, the exit routes already were blocked and police had encircled the area.

“People started scattering, running everywhere. The two choppers up in the air were directing the teams,” said Villanueva.

Guided by spotters in the helicopters and feeds from a drone, police pursued the fleeing gamblers on foot, on horseback, and with dogs and four-wheelers.

Others, who jumped into their vehicles and locked the doors, had their car windows broken and were forcibly removed.

“The property owner was not there that day. We believe he is out of San Antonio,” the sheriff added, declining to identify the person.

Villanueva said his investigators now are trying to identify the organizers of the event, which was not the first held at the site.

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The people who were arrested came from all around South and Central Texas, including Laredo, Austin, Houston, Floresville, Cotulla, Dilley and Corpus Christi. The sheriff said some came from out of state.

The impounded vehicles included a BMW, a Hummer, a couple of late-model Cadillacs and some high-end pickups. Also seized was a van and air-conditioned trailer to transport roosters.

Six days after the bust, the sheriff said not a single person had contacted his department about recovering a vehicle.

Cultural appeal

Illegal in all 50 states and U.S. territories, cockfighting still exerts a strong cultural appeal. While it went underground in Texas and other Southern and Western states years ago, it hardly has gone away.

In January, more than 300 roosters were seized when police busted a cockfight north of Houston. Late last year, there were other arrests for cockfighting or breeding fighting roosters in Waco and Mineral Wells.

“It’s still quite common,” said Katie Jarl, regional director for the Humane Society of the United States, which wants to make it a felony to participate in or watch a cockfight. “Honestly, strong laws are a good deterrent, but we hear from law enforcement all across the state that it’s still operating in Texas.”

Over the decades, Texas lawmakers have raised the some of the penalties.

In 2011, they made it illegal to breed fighting roosters or attend a cockfight, but that law didn’t go far enough, Jarl said.

“That bill made it a felony to participate in a cockfight but it’s still not a felony to be a spectator. Law enforcement tells us that when they show up at the scene of a cockfight, everyone drops their birds and says, ‘I was just watching,’” she said.

Cockfighting also can be dangerous for humans.

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In 2012, masked gunmen shot up a cockfight in La Blance, in the Rio Grande Valley. Three men were killed and eight injured. Police also found 20 dead roosters.

That same year, a participant in a cockfight held north of the Texas community of Athens was shot and killed after a fight broke out.

And a bizarre accidental death had occurred a year earlier at a cockfight in California.

Jose Luis Ochoa, who was at a cockfight in Tulare County, bled to death after he was slashed in the leg by one of the birds, which was wearing a sharp steel gaff. Ochoa was dead when he arrived at a hospital two hours later.

Back in Gillett, which is little more than a post office and cafe at a busy highway intersection, some residents say the hidden site off FM 887 has been used for cockfights for years, and has been raided before by police.

“That cockfighting cult is a close-knit group. Who tipped law enforcement off, I don’t know,” said one local man, who asked not to be named.

Years ago, he said, the well-known “dead giveaway” that a cockfight was under way at the site between FM 887 and County Road 263 was a garden hose running across the caliche road into the brush to provide water for the event.

“There’s still plenty of it going on — the others just didn’t get caught,” he added.

Eating breakfast with friends at the Gillett General Store, Marvin Barnhill, 68, a lifelong resident, shared the local gossip, including the rumor — unfounded according to the sheriff — that a South Texas elected official was among those rounded up.

“They said the purse was $150,000. I’m just mad they didn’t tell me, so I couldn’t be there,” Barnhill joked.

One of his companions found the whole affair disturbing.

“It’s cruel and inhumane,” said Deene Janysek. “And if something like this has to happen to stop the chicken fighting, that’s fine.”

Messy aftermath

Six days after the bust, the 2-acre clearing in the brush was lifeless except for a lone buzzard circling overhead, drawn by the stench.

The aftermath of a cockfight, particularly one that had come to a sudden unexpected end, is messy.

While the fighting pit was bare and empty, decaying bodies of roosters, stripped of their gaffs and crawling with flies, were scattered in the bushes.

The ground was littered with blue vinyl gloves, empty beer cans and water containers, and the kernels of broken window glass. There also were dozens of the zip-tie handcuffs used to detain people.

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Other debris, including large red empty bags of game rooster food, was strewn around.

And if there was any question that other fights had occurred here, the fire pits put that to rest.

Along with the ashes and burned garbage were the pale, charred bones of many fighting roosters, all casualties of their last trip to the fight pit.

jmaccormack@express-news.net