December 21, 2020
DEAR FRIENDS,
On Tuesday, December 22, SHARK is going to hold a press conference in front of KY State Police Troop 10 to demand answers as to why they did not shut down an illegal cockfight that was held on Saturday night.
There has already been coverage of this issue.
Please check out the story and leave a comment:
"Anti-cockfighting group calls KSP ‘corrupt,’ seeks investigation"
Please continue to contact KY Governor Andy Beshear and demand he take action.
Phone: (502) 564-2611
Webmail: https://governor.ky.gov/contact/contact-us
Here is the press release we sent out:
KY State Police Refuse to Shut Down Illegal Cockfight in Harlan County
On Tuesday morning, Investigators from Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK) will be at the KY State Police Troop 10, in Harlan, to demand answers as to why the state police did not shut down an illegal cockfight which occurred Saturday night.
As background, SHARK recently received information regarding a major cockfighting location in Harlan County called the "Pinemountian Game Club.” We alerted the KY state police to this, including Captain Catron of Troop 10.
This past Friday, we personally went to Troop 10 and handed over the evidence we had collected, which included pictures and a schedule showing that this was an ongoing criminal venture with plans to hold cockfights every week from now until June (except Christmas). The schedule even included a phone number and our research shows that to be for Randy Hornsby. That phone number was: (606) 273-9037. The schedule is available upon request.
Our investigators were told that this cockfight would be shutdown. Unfortunately that’s not what happened.
“We surveilled the cockfighting location on Saturday. At approximately 3 PM vehicles began arriving for the illegal fight. The investigators drove to Troop 10 to inform the police. The police would only say that the matter was under investigation and refused to give out any further information,” states SHARK President Steve Hindi. “Upon returning to the cockfight location we counted more than 50 vehicles and brought a picture of that back to Troop 10. Later on we counted at least 100 vehicles, meaning this was truly a major criminal event.”
Even though the State Police were fully aware of the illegal cockfight, they allowed it to go on.
“It is incredibly frustrating and disturbing that so much animal cruelty and other violations of the law were allowed to happen,” states Hindi. “We tried to work with the State Police and even handed them direct evidence of the illegal operation, but it still went on anyway. We are demanding answers to this, and that’s why we will be in front of Troop 10 tomorrow morning."
