However, by the time the sheriff’s office made its celebratory post, all of those roosters were already dead, having been slated for euthanization before the search warrant was even executed.
“The loss of any animal is devastating,’ says Adam Sherman, spokesperson for the sheriff’s office. “Unfortunately in this case, the roosters were euthanized based on the recommendation of a veterinarian with the Bureau of Animal Protection, who was on scene as the search warrant was conducted. ... Due to the bodily modifications for fighting, the behavior of the birds while being handled in the field and other factors, it was deemed that the roosters were not safe for potential rehabilitation.”
Despite that, media reports and posts on social media from the sheriff's office made it seem as though the roosters were rescued and safe.
“ACSO takes incidents of animal cruelty and animal fighting very seriously! Great job by our deputies, detectives, and our regional partners for saving these birds,” the department wrote on Facebook, X and Instagram.
Sherman says that at the time of the initial media reports, information “wasn’t clear between all the departments and entities involved,” which is why news stories indicated that the birds had been rescued or were still being evaluated.
Jewel Johnson, who runs the Rooster Sanctuary at Danzig’s Roost in Bennett, says that after hearing a detective say on the news that the birds would be assessed for health and behavior, she knew they would be killed.
“Those are the two excuses that the authorities use,” Johnson says. “I offered to help place them. I'll always take the most aggressive ones. … Most of them are not, but if any of them are just too difficult, I will take them and I will keep them forever and respect their space, so there's not any excuse to kill even the ones that are man-fighters.”
The graphic Adams County distributed advertising the rescue of the roosters.
Adams County Sheriff's Office Social Media
Johnson shared emails with Westword showing the Adams County Riverdale Shelter asking her for help with some hens, but those emails never indicated where the birds were from. Johnson says when she asked if they were from the seizure, she was told the information could not be disclosed.
The Riverdale shelter later found placements elsewhere for the hens and chicks involved in the seizure, Sherman says. Johnson argues that saving the hens and chicks but killing the roosters doesn’t make sense.
“If they thought the hens and chicks were healthy for adoption, why kill the roosters for health reasons?” she asks. “They’re all sharing the same blood and come from the same environment.”
Since 2015, Danzig’s has provided homes for roosters used in cockfighting. The shelter currently serves as the home for 92 fighting roosters and sixty game hens, which are used to breed cockfighting birds. There are also other avian species like geese and turkeys on the property.
Birds at the shelter are not used for any commercial purpose, not even for eggs. Since she began taking fighters in, Johnson says, she has learned many lessons about cockfighting.
The longtime avian caregiver expected the birds to be bloodthirsty, but that isn’t the case at all, Johnson says. Rather, they are highly trained animals whose aggression toward humans has usually been weeded out, as that is considered not beneficial to fighting.
Because they’ve been trained so closely, they’re used to human contact — but that’s also what makes cockfighting cruel.
“The thing that gets me in the heart the most about cockfighting is the people that work with these roosters develop trust and a relationship with each rooster,” Johnson says. “If a bird is nervous, then they'll rub the bird's cheek. ... They'll do practice sparring where it's never lethal, no serious injuries happen — but then, one day, they do put the weapons on their feet, and then they do put them in a pit with another bird, and it is lethal, but the bird never saw that coming. ... That betrayal is the saddest part.”
Though Johnson doesn’t approve of sending roosters to die, she says that’s usually what happens to them when animal control or law enforcement get involved, as was the case with the 32 roosters in Adams County.
“They didn't have to be killed, and I think everyone involved in the decision to kill them was completely aware there was an alternative,” she says. “It’s kind of strange when I say this, but the birds are safer with the people that fight them than with the authorities. That's the truth, and that's really sad.”
On July 23, four days after the raid, the 17th Judicial District Attorney’s Office announced it had charged Jesus Orozco with cruelty to animals and animal fighting in connection with events between July 9 and July 18 in Watkins.
