Police Raid Cockfighting Pens in Pacoima : Law enforcement: Officers order the homeowner to get rid of more than 50 roosters. The Department of Animal Regulation refuses to take the birds.

Los Angeles police raided a Pacoima property Saturday where fighting cocks were being illegally bred and trained--but then left more than 50 of the roosters behind when animal regulation officers refused to take them.

Vice officers complained that the city’s Department of Animal Regulation has stopped taking gamecocks in recent months, severely hampering efforts to control the illegal blood sport, which is popular in parts of the northeast San Fernando Valley.

On Saturday, police were left with no alternative but to issue the owner of the Herrick Avenue property a misdemeanor citation, which carries a fine of $100 to $250, and tell him politely to get rid of the birds.

“If he doesn’t get rid of them, we can’t really do anything about it,” Sgt. Cary Krebs said. “Animal Regulation won’t take the birds, so the problem just gets bigger and bigger. There is no deterrent. If people knew they were going to lose their birds, maybe they wouldn’t have them.”

A supervisor at the Department of Animal Regulation’s East Valley care and control center confirmed that the agency no longer accepts fighting birds seized by police unless the birds are injured.

“We don’t have the facilities to house them anymore,” Lt. Esther Storbakken said.

Storbakken said the birds must be stored in separate cages, are very loud and must be kept for months until the court cases of their owners are completed and a judge orders the birds destroyed. She declined further comment and referred questions on when and why the department changed its policy concerning the birds to a spokesman who would not be available until Monday.

While police acknowledged that caring for the seized birds is a nuisance, they said Animal Regulation’s refusal to accept gamecocks has made a state law forbidding possession of fighting birds largely unenforceable. They add that complaints about cockfighting in the East Valley have been on the rise in recent months.

“Animal Regulation has an obligation to store evidence for us and they won’t,” Krebs said.

With photographs of the birds, criminal prosecutions are not difficult, but police said their inability to take birds from owners, quite simply, prevents them from stopping the abuse.

Although it is a felony in 10 other states, keeping or fighting gamecocks in California is a misdemeanor, routinely punished by a fine and probation.

Cockfighting is also legal in four states, including Arizona, and in Mexico. Experts say the sport attracts people from all cultures and social levels. In the Valley, authorities say, its illegal status makes it a clandestine activity found primarily in Latino areas, where the sport is a cultural import from Mexico.

In a fight, the birds are pitted and attack each other with razor-sharp blades, or gaffs, attached to their legs. By the time a bird is ready to fight, it has gone through nearly a year of rigorous training that includes injections with vitamins and other chemicals called energizers. The comb and wattle are trimmed, or dubbed, from a bird’s head to cut down on bleeding during a fight. The birds are trained to attack other roosters through various exercises and sparring matches.

Gamecocks can be valued at $300 to $500 apiece--and owners often consider them symbolic of their own pride and skills in breeding, training and handling. Hundreds of dollars are often waged on illegal fights. And for these reasons, police said, seizing fighting birds from owners is far more important than fining them.

On Saturday, two vice officers acting on a tip drove behind Everardo Rodriguez Reyes’ house to a garage and ramshackle plywood shed on the rear of his property and found more than 100 roosters and chickens.

Many were roaming around free, but most were in solitary cages and at least 52 of these sequestered birds were fighting cocks--showing the telltale dubbing of the comb and wattle. In the garage was equipment relating to the sport: hypodermic needles and jars of liquid vitamins, hormones and blood coagulants. There was a set of muffs--which look like miniature boxing gloves and are tied to a gamecock’s legs for sparring matches.

“They are definitely training birds for fighting here,” Officer Tere Roble said.

Roble questioned Rodriguez, 30, who said the birds belonged to his brother, then said they belonged to a friend.

He acknowledged they were being trained to fight and said they would be sold in Arizona and Mexico.

He was given a misdemeanor citation and told to get rid of the birds. Rodriguez said he would.

Krebs and Roble said they will make an unannounced check of the location next month to make sure the birds are gone, but both pointed out that leaving the roosters behind allows owners to simply move them to other locations.

The result, Roble said, is that complaints about cockfighting and storage of the birds are increasing in the Foothill Division and she has a backlog of 25 locations to check out.

After the raid in Pacoima, the vice officers stopped Saturday afternoon at a large rural property in Sylmar where they had found dozens of gamecocks and a fighting pit in a raid a few months ago. This time they found the pit had been removed as well as a shed where many birds had been stored, but in another shed they found four gamecocks being used to breed others.

Their owner, a man who recently rented the space and was not connected with the earlier operation, was warned to get rid of the birds and agreed to do so.

As the officers drove away, Krebs said he is doubtful that the problem can be controlled unless authorities can take gamecocks away from their owners.

“We are not getting rid of the birds; we are just moving them around,” Krebs said.

“If somebody loses 50 birds worth up to $500 each--ouch! But that isn’t happening anymore. We can’t seize the birds, so nothing happens.”