(Beth Clifton collage)
Meanwhile Texas sheriff Ruben Nolasco, who did not do his job during the Uvalde school massacre, again allegedly does not do his job in response to tips about cockfighting
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas; UVALDE, Texas––Three days after investigative work by Animal Wellness Action representative Kevin Chambers set up the March 30, 2025 arrest of 21 alleged cockfighters and seizure of 67 roosters at a cockfighting derby in Hunt County, Texas, 60 miles from the Arkansas border, Chambers was again the man of the hour at an Arkansas state Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that killed HB 1611, a bill passed by the Arkansas House of Representatives that would have disabled the state law against cockfighting.
“Kevin Chambers, who has worked with Steve Hindi of Animal Wellness Action on so many cockfighting raids, appeared and unmasked U.S. Gamefowl Commission spokesperson Blake Pearce as an active member of a multi-generational cockfighting family,” Animal Wellness Action president Wayne Pacelle emailed to ANIMALS 24-7.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“We got it just in time”
“Pearce and U.S. Gamefowl Commission president Anthony DeVore cooked up this whole scheme to pull a fast one on lawmakers. We got it just in time,” Pacelle said.
(See “Arkansas House passed pro cockfighting bill,” & it was not an April Fool.)
“Just two days after the Arkansas House of Representatives approved HB 1611,” Pacelle explained in a prepared statement, “the Senate Judiciary Committee overwhelmingly quashed the effort, defeating the measure on a voice vote.
“The defeat of the bill also came just two days after Washington County, Arkansas authorities arrested two backyard cockfighters,” Pacelle added, “whose activities would not have been illegal under the terms of HB 1611.”
Anthony Devore.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Two notorious cockfighters from Oklahoma”
Added Desiree Bender, Animal Wellness Action state director for Arkansas, “Two notorious cockfighters from Oklahoma brought this bill to the state, and their motivations and their backgrounds as cockfighters were unveiled by our team. We are grateful to the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who saw through the cockfighters’ charade.”
In addition to the Animal Wellness Action team, also representing the allied Center for a Humane Economy, “Three elected Arkansas district attorneys explained to the state senators that HB 1611 was not about protecting legitimate poultry producers, and was all about decriminalizing cockfighting. The Arkansas Animal Control Association also weighed in against the measure.”
(Beth Clifton collage)
Family tradition
“Blake Pearce’s father,” Pacelle recalled, “was the lead plaintiff 20 years ago in legal maneuvers to overturn a voter-approved ballot initiative in Oklahoma to make cockfighting a felony. The family maintains a major cockbreeding complex in eastern Oklahoma.
“The case was Edmondson v. Pearce, decided by the Oklahoma Supreme Court, which unanimously ruled that Oklahoma’s comprehensive anti-cockfighting law, a model for lawmakers in Arkansas, who enacted a similar statute in 2009, was constitutional.
Said Chambers, not taking a word of personal credit, “The only people behind the HB 1611 were cockfighters, and I am grateful to Senate Judiciary Committee members for allowing us to detail the motivations of the proponents.”
Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt consorts with the Oklahoma Gamefowl Commission.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Oklahoma bills to decriminalize cockfighting all failed
Resumed Pacelle, “Pearce and his associate, Anthony DeVore, have repeatedly failed to gain any traction with similar efforts in the Oklahoma legislature to weaken that state’s anti-cockfighting law. Despite forming a Political Action Committee and distributing tens of thousands of dollars to state lawmakers – with tainted money from raffling fighting birds to other cockfighters — not one of their three bills in Oklahoma even made it out of its first committee this year.”
“No state has ever weakened its anti-cockfighting law, and I am awfully glad that Arkansas law remains intact,” concluded Pacelle.
Pacelle about two weeks earlier reminded in a media release addressing animal fighting in Texas that, “Salvador Ramos, the 18-year-old who massacred 19 children and two teachers at a school in Uvalde, Texas, allegedly boasted to friends that he tortured animals, among the latest examples in a long list of mass shooters and serial killers who got started with animal cruelty.”
Uvalde County sheriff Ruben Nolasco.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Hindi confronts Nolasco
While Pacelle, Chambers, and Bender were stopping cockfighters in Little Rock, the Arkansas state capital, Hindi of Showing Animals Respect & Kindness was, coincidentally, confronting Uvalde County Sheriff Ruben Nolasco about his non-response to tips about cockfighting within his jurisdiction.
“Three times today I called your office to provide information about an illegal cockfighting operation in your county,” Hindi emailed to Nolasco, cc. to ANIMALS 24-7.
“On my first call, I was able to give only partial information to a woman,” Hindi said. “She refused to take all the information, claiming an officer would call me back for the rest of the information. I didn’t receive a callback. I had to leave messages the other two times I called.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Cockfighters are violent criminals”
“I am therefore providing that information in this email,” Hindi continued.
“The address of the property is 628 Deer Valley Ranch Road, Uvalde,” Hindi said. “The property owner is Thomas L. Sanchez. The coordinates for the pit building are 29.3312, -99.7600. The cockfighters have primarily used the entrance across from 480 Arrow Head Lane, Uvalde. Fights occur weekly on either Saturday or Sunday,” Hindi alleged.
“The source of this information is trusted,” Hindi told Sheriff Nolasco, “but must be kept anonymous because cockfighters are violent criminals.”
(Beth Clifton collage)
Nolasco history vs. violent criminal
In the U.S. Department of Justice Critical Incident Review, Active Shooter at Robb Elementary School, released on January 18, 2024, “Sheriff Ruben Nolasco and Uvalde County Constable Emmanuel Zamora were both highlighted for their inaction on May 24, 2022 when hundreds of law enforcement officers waited more than an hour to take down the school shooter,” reported William Melhado for the Texas Tribune.
“The Justice Department repeatedly named Nolasco in its scathing criticism of responding officers,” Melhado continued.
“Sheriff Nolasco did not seek out or establish a command post, establish unified command, share the intelligence he learned from [two relatives of shooter Nolasco], nor did he assign an intelligence officer to gather intelligence on the subject,” Melhado quoted from the Justice Department report.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“We intend to see the Uvalde cockpit shut down, permanently”
But Sheriff Nolasco apparently still has not learned to move his hindquarters in response to information about crimes in progress.
“We may be at this location as early as this weekend,” Hindi pledged. “In any case, we will know if this criminal operation continues. If it continues, it will be a very bad look for your office, and the county generally,” a county that already has a great deal to live down, including Nolasco’s department having arrested parents who desperately tried to rescue their children, under gunfire, when the Uvalde County sheriff’s deputies did not even try.
“In March alone,” Hindi reminded Nolasco, “Animal Wellness Action and Showing Animals Respect & Kindness have exposed illegal cockfight pits in Martin County, Titus County, Ellis County and Hunt County, Texas, as well as pits in Oklahoma, Kentucky and Tennessee.
Merritt & Beth Clifton with Henry the rooster.
“We intend to see the illegal Uvalde pit shut down, permanently. Please deal with this yourself, so we don’t have to,” Hindi concluded.
Robb Elementary School, twelve miles from the alleged cockpit, is shut down, permanently. Perhaps Nolasco could take a lesson from the closure.
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The post Arkansas state senate kills house bill to legalize cockfighting appeared first on Animals 24-7.
