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| Whoopi Goldberg Defends Vick - Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3 ... , 12, 13, 14 Next |
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resigned
 Posted:
Sat Sep 15, 2007 9:45 pm |
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I think that Whoopi's remarks were lame regarding the Vick case. I don't believe that Vick or any of the other dogfight operators involved had any concerns about their own, or anyone else's cultural heritage. I think it was just what the Bad Newz buddies decided to do.
I don't care what neighborhood or area of the country that anyone comes from, most men I know would put themselves in harm's way if another dog attacked his dog. You don't mess with with a man's dog.
I think most people in Bad News think that dogfighting is just as disgusting as the rest of the country. JMO
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By DAVID RESS
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
NEWPORT NEWS -- They call Michael Vick's end of town Bad News.
It's as if the 950-plus units in Richmond's Mosby Court and Creighton Court public-housing projects were crammed into an area of about a dozen blocks.
Row after row of aging two-story apartment buildings, pressed close to the Interstate 664 bridge and looming black piles of coal.
Close enough to the water for a whiff from the seafood packing plants but not for a fresh breeze.
Just enough space for a walkway and clotheslines between the buildings -- but not for a basketball court.
And not a dog to be seen.
If Michael Vick is involved in siccing pit bulls on one another in dogfights, as a federal indictment alleges he did at Bad Newz Kennels in Surry County, he didn't learn it in the neighborhood he grew up in, residents there say.
The pit bulls there now seem to be a new phenomenon.
"There weren't any of those dogs around until maybe five years ago," said Marita Harris, who lives a few blocks away, near the 16th Street pier where as a youngster Vick liked to fish in the green and silver waters of Hampton Roads.
Vick left the Newport News housing projects in 1998, on the wings of a college football scholarship, after the aspiring young quarterback led his Warwick High School Raiders to a 7-3 season.
He went on to Virginia Tech, where he became a star. In his second year at the university, a Sports Illustrated photographer shot a picture of him playing with a pit bull named Champagne, the barrel-chested animal leaping up shoulder-high to try to snatch a football out of Vick's hands.
The ESPN network in May reported, using an anonymous police informant, that Vick placed a $5,000 bet on a dogfight in 2000 -- that is, while he was still at Virginia Tech.
"I hadn't heard that story," said Tech head football coach Frank Beamer.
"Again, my thing is that I know him as a very good person, a very caring person. I think a lot of things get going during these periods of time. But I'm going to wait until this is all said and done to make any further statements."
According to the federal indictment issued July 17, Vick bought acreage in rural Surry County, about 30 miles from his old neighborhood, not quite two months after signing a $62 million, six-year contract with the Atlanta Falcons, including a $3 million signing bonus. The idea, the indictment alleges, was to train pit bulls and stage fights in a business venture with three friends.
"It's just shocking," said James "Poo" Johnson, a Boys Club official who has known Vick since he was a child.
"I've never even seen him with a dog."
In the projects where Vick grew up, there isn't much money for buying and betting on dogs, said Kevin Brown, a minister who has organized a storefront after-school program called Operation Breaking Through.
"Folks in this community are just in survival mode," he said. "They don't have money for gambling."
To him, the charges don't make sense.
"No, there's no dogfighting around here," said one 25-year-old man hanging around with a group of a dozen friends by the Harbor Homes on Jefferson Avenue.
Yeah, he and a couple of others say, asked if they knew Vick. "He don't know us, though," one says. None wants to give a name.
"We need to wait and see what the truth is," said Harris, watching the sunlight play off the waters that Vick used to fish.
Vick has said he started fishing when he was 10 or 11 as a way to get away from the violence and stress of daily life in the projects.
"Sometimes," he told the Daily Press newspaper of Newport News in 2001, "I would go fishing even if the fish weren't biting, just to get out of there."
A sense that he was special, even as a 7-year-old throwing three touchdown passes in a Boys Club league, led coaches and his parents to keep a special watch over Vick. In high school, he would spend weekends at his coach's home with teammates.
His coach paid for tutors for his SATs. His mother took away the box full of the college recruiting letters he started getting in the 10th grade when he came home with a report card with three D's and two F's, Vick recalled in a 2000 interview.
He knew sports was a way out.
It's a dream for many. And even if it isn't, sports is a way for children in the Newport News projects to stay out of trouble, says Jimmy Whitby. His kids, ages 9 to 15, like to play at the basketball court four blocks away, over on 21st -- though gunfire sometimes sends them scampering back home.
There is drug dealing, drive-by shooting and killing in the neighborhood, Whitby says. Plenty of good people, too.
Asked about Vick, he says only that it's a shame when people from Newport News projects do make good, they forget about back home.
Then, he scuffs a foot on the hard-packed, bare dirt by his stoop.
"All this is nothing but sand down here, can't even grow grass," he says, raising his voice to be heard over the highway's roar.
"You're stuck in a little hole down here.
Staff writer Darryl Slater contributed to this report.
http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news/michael_vick.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2007-07-25-0162.html
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Click your heels together...
Joined: 14 Aug 2006
Posts: 27035
Location: "Onboard" pathenry's desk
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| Isanah
Posted:
Sat Sep 15, 2007 9:47 pm |
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Talking about race does not make one a racist.
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Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 7467
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| Schmerty
Posted:
Sun Sep 16, 2007 2:38 am |
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Thank You for posting that article PH! I wish many of the residents of the U.S. didn't have such desolate lives & thougths filled with dispair!
People have to have something to look forward to. I really wish we could do something to make just one more person, hopeful &willing to find some good in every day!! 
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Skipping along my own path.
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 3256
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| yankee-in-france
Posted:
Sun Sep 16, 2007 2:51 am |
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-- me too, Schmerty. It would be wonderful.
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YIF
Joined: 30 Mar 2006
Posts: 6559
Location: France
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| joynow
Posted:
Sun Sep 16, 2007 10:00 pm |
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This thread became quite heated, but after reading the whole thing I see no reason that Tulsad was the only one deactivated. I think that was an unjust oversight.
I have reactivated Tulsad, it's been two days, and personally, I feel that was too long. Unless I have missed some critical nuance, Tulsad was certainly not the most offensive on this thread.
In the future, I think an intense topic like this could be resumed in the Heated Exchange forum so that it can be discussed in more direct manner.
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Soy Bomb
Joined: 31 Dec 1969
Posts: 1180
Location: Here
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| Katie
Posted:
Mon Sep 17, 2007 7:03 am |
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| joynow wrote: | This thread became quite heated, but after reading the whole thing I see no reason that Tulsad was the only one deactivated. I think that was an unjust oversight.
I have reactivated Tulsad, it's been two days, and personally, I feel that was too long. Unless I have missed some critical nuance, Tulsad was certainly not the most offensive on this thread.
In the future, I think an intense topic like this could be resumed in the Heated Exchange forum so that it can be discussed in more direct manner. |
Thank-you Joynow and I agree.
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| scheherazade
Posted:
Mon Sep 17, 2007 7:08 am |
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| Katie wrote: | | joynow wrote: | This thread became quite heated, but after reading the whole thing I see no reason that Tulsad was the only one deactivated. I think that was an unjust oversight.
I have reactivated Tulsad, it's been two days, and personally, I feel that was too long. Unless I have missed some critical nuance, Tulsad was certainly not the most offensive on this thread.
In the future, I think an intense topic like this could be resumed in the Heated Exchange forum so that it can be discussed in more direct manner. |
Thank-you Joynow and I agree. |
Yes.
Many thanks, Joynow.
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** Banned **
Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 3864
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| tulsad
Posted:
Mon Sep 17, 2007 7:12 am |
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Thanks, Joy. I'm glad to be back.
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Sparkly Tree
Joined: 19 Aug 2006
Posts: 10139
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| wvgirl
Posted:
Mon Sep 17, 2007 10:08 am |
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I'm glad you're back, too. 
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Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 3629
Location: Almost Heaven
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| tulsad
Posted:
Mon Sep 17, 2007 2:40 pm |
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| wvgirl wrote: | | I'm glad you're back, too. |
Thanks WVG!! 
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Sparkly Tree
Joined: 19 Aug 2006
Posts: 10139
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| Schmerty
Posted:
Mon Sep 17, 2007 5:35 pm |
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| joynow wrote: | This thread became quite heated, but after reading the whole thing I see no reason that Tulsad was the only one deactivated. I think that was an unjust oversight.
I have reactivated Tulsad, it's been two days, and personally, I feel that was too long. Unless I have missed some critical nuance, Tulsad was certainly not the most offensive on this thread.
In the future, I think an intense topic like this could be resumed in the Heated Exchange forum so that it can be discussed in more direct manner. |
Thank You Joy! You are a fair & level headed Message Board Owner.
 
Welcome back Tully!!! 
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Skipping along my own path.
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 3256
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| victims cry
Posted:
Mon Sep 17, 2007 5:58 pm |
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One thing Joy was not aware of because we did not have a chance to talk before, is that Tulsad was not actually given the time out until Saturday morning. I was thinking it was delayed in reactivating as well until Fash just reminded me that saturday morning she asked if i had deactivated since she was online the night before. Got caught up in kays arrival and didn't on friday.
So technically Tulsad's deactivation ended at 10 am today. Yes i would have been 6 hours late. The reason for her deactivation was not what she said per se, it had to do with what she said shortly after 3 warnings by Fash on this forum to everyone. I'm glad she is back too but there is a reason this subject is here and not HE.
As it has been made clear that sides are being taken admin vs admin and mod vs mod I will leave this thread alone.
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On Vacation!
Joined: 22 Mar 2006
Posts: 9275
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| SavannahStar
Posted:
Mon Sep 17, 2007 6:33 pm |
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VC, no mod or admin can please everyone all the time. All three of you do a superb job trying to keep the peace. It's just gotta be a horrific job, with little thanks.
So here: thanks to Joy, VC and Fash, for all that each one of you does for RU. We can be a tough bunch, and you guys each deserve a medal.
     
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**SuperStar**
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 20775
Location: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
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| Fashionista
Posted:
Mon Sep 17, 2007 8:02 pm |
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| SavannahStar wrote: | VC, no mod or admin can please everyone all the time. All three of you do a superb job trying to keep the peace. It's just gotta be a horrific job, with little thanks.
So here: thanks to Joy, VC and Fash, for all that each one of you does for RU. We can be a tough bunch, and you guys each deserve a medal.
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Truly appreciate the kind words, SavannahStar SuperStar
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Homeland Security - Refugee Staff
Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 5147
Location: REFSTAGON
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| scheherazade
Posted:
Mon Sep 17, 2007 8:07 pm |
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| Isanah wrote: | | Talking about race does not make one a racist. |
But the issue wasn't just 'talking about race."
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** Banned **
Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 3864
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| resigned
Posted:
Tue Sep 18, 2007 1:27 am |
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| scheherazade wrote: | | Isanah wrote: | | Talking about race does not make one a racist. |
But the issue wasn't just 'talking about race." |
What was the issue then?
point by point.
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Click your heels together...
Joined: 14 Aug 2006
Posts: 27035
Location: "Onboard" pathenry's desk
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| juno1
Posted:
Tue Sep 18, 2007 11:42 am |
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http://www.ajc.com/services/content/sports/falcons/stories/2007/09/17/0918_vicknike.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=21
ajc.com > Sports > Falcons
Nike to address financial impact of Vick - Shareholder asks how QB's fate affects his
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published on: 09/17/07
Beaverton, Ore. — Nike executives say they will discuss the financial impact of the company's relationship with Michael Vick on Thursday during a quarterly earnings conference call.
The question arose Monday during an annual meeting, where a shareholder asked Nike executives about the financial impact of the cancellation of the Vick shoe and possibility for restitution. Nike officials said they could not discuss it at this time but would during the conference call this week.
Nike severed its ties with Michael Vick in late August after he filed a plea agreement on dogfighting conspiracy charges and was suspended by the NFL.
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| juno1
Posted:
Tue Sep 18, 2007 12:44 pm |
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http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/printedition/2007/09/14/buzz0914.html
Marking one month
How does ESPN plan to mark the whopping one-month anniversary of benched Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick's guilty plea? The sports channel is headed here for a nationally televised special, "SportsCenter Special: The Vick Divide —- An ESPN Town Meeting" Tuesday night from 6 to 7:30. The meeting will be broadcast from the Sydney Marcus Auditorium at the Georgia World Congress Center downtown. Among the topics host Bob Ley will dig into? How Vick's arrest on dogfighting charges has divided Atlanta, whether he was treated fairly and what his future might be in the NFL. The event is open to the public.
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Joined: 16 May 2006
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Location: USA
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| Katie
Posted:
Tue Sep 18, 2007 6:09 pm |
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| resigned wrote: | | scheherazade wrote: | | Isanah wrote: | | Talking about race does not make one a racist. |
But the issue wasn't just 'talking about race." |
What was the issue then?
point by point. |
I thought the issue was dog fighting, which has been going on along time before Vick ever was exposed.
Whoppi said its a cultural down south thing, which I produced links to back that up.
Dog fighting has been around a long time, its illegal in North America but not everwhere.
If someone wants to make a point, a real point, then I'm all game but when racists bitches opinions take over, we are all fucked. 
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Joined: 25 Mar 2006
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| resigned
Posted:
Tue Sep 18, 2007 6:33 pm |
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| Katie wrote: | | resigned wrote: | | scheherazade wrote: | | Isanah wrote: | | Talking about race does not make one a racist. |
But the issue wasn't just 'talking about race." |
What was the issue then?
point by point. |
I thought the issue was dog fighting, which has been going on along time before Vick ever was exposed.
Whoppi said its a cultural down south thing, which I produced links to back that up.
Dog fighting has been around a long time, its illegal in North America but not everwhere.
If someone wants to make a point, a real point, then I'm all game but when racists bitches opinions take over, we are all fucked. |
I think that Whoopi's arguement is lame.
The "down south" you are talking about is in North America and as far as I know, Vick and his friends were raised in North America and the link that I posted shows that the people that live where Vick was raised do not consider dogfighting as just another "part of their heritage" (my term).
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Click your heels together...
Joined: 14 Aug 2006
Posts: 27035
Location: "Onboard" pathenry's desk
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| Katie
Posted:
Tue Sep 18, 2007 6:43 pm |
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Who the fuck said heritage,
Dog Fighting has been a southern past time for generations, see links but it is now becoming popular in urban America.
Its not a new thing, is it.
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| Katie
Posted:
Tue Sep 18, 2007 7:03 pm |
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Once limited to the rural South, dogfighting sees a cultural shift
http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=126838&ran=241086
Once limited to the rural South, dogfighting sees a cultural shift
A dog that had been fought and abandoned in Oakland, Ca. in 2006. The dog was recovered by The Humane Society of the United States.
A dog that had been fought and abandoned in Oakland, Ca. in 2006. The dog was recovered by The Humane Society of the United States. HUMANE SOCIETY OF THE UNITED STATES PHOTOS
By BILL BURKE, The Virginian-Pilot
© June 17, 2007
Hardly a day goes by in his Gaithersburg, Md., office without John Goodwin receiving a phone call or e-mail about his most popular subject: Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick.
Some, like the man who called June 1, are confidential informants passing along tidbits about Vick to Goodwin, the top dog in the Humane Society’s campaign to wipe out animal fighting in the United States.
Shortly after Vick’s Surry County house was raided and evidence of a suspected dogfighting operation was found there in April, Goodwin added the NFL star to a massive database he oversees.
The 20,000 names it contains include a rogue’s gallery of the nation’s most notorious known and suspected dog fighters:
David Tant, a 300-pound bear of a man and one of the world’s most prolific breeders of fighting dogs, serving a 30-year sentence in South Carolina, among the stiffest ever imposed for the crime. One of the “directional mines” he planted to keep people away from his dogs injured a land surveyor.
“Fat Bill” Reynolds of western Virginia, convicted in 2001 of transmitting images of fighting dogs across state lines and sentenced to 30 months after Tant testified against him before a federal grand jury.
He has served his time and is now back on Goodwin’s radar.
Louisiana’s Floyd Boudreaux, one of the patriarchs of the blood sport, who has played cat-and-mouse with investigators for decades and is reported to have once traded his grand champion dog, Blind Billy, for a house.
The cast of suspects is a mongrel mix, including legendary dogmen such as Mountain Man and the Gambler, professional athletes, rap music performers and Alane Koki, a patent-holding cancer researcher in North Carolina.
Those familiar with dogfighting say it has undergone a cultural shift in recent years. A pursuit once practiced chiefly in the rural South has moved to the mean streets of the ’hood. Today dogfighting can be found in rural Southwest Virginia as well as in housing projects in Newport News.
The Internet has enabled dogfighting to get an international foothold, with its practitioners often communicating in code, frequently changing Web sites, and posting “fictional” accounts such as this one, involving a grand champion fighter named Mayday:
“It was Mayday’s easiest fight. He used Big Red like a punching bag. He mopped the floor with him. People watching wanted to change his name to PAYDAY. … Others were calling him KILLING MACHINE. … It ended with Mayday SCREAMING in the corner. He was just getting started. He wanted another hour …”
Enforcers like Goodwin – the Humane Society’s deputy manager of animal fighting – describe a brutal business in which dogs that lack the killer instinct are often shot or electrocuted, then tossed in a trash bin or buried in a bone yard.
“We don’t want that type of barbaric activity going on in South Carolina,” said Mark Plowden, a spokesman for the state Attorney General’s Office, which created a dog fighting task force in 2004 that has snared Tant and others.
“It’s clear that when you have dog fighting, drugs and gambling and other criminal subcultures follow,” Plowden said. “We want to drive it out of South Carolina. If it shows up in other states, that’s their problem, not ours anymore.”
Today, North Carolina is said to be one of the nation’s most active dog fighting venues. Virginia, say those inside and outside the fighting game, gets the overflow.
When agents raided Bill Reynolds’ property near Martinsville in September 2000, part of the evidence they seized was a treadmill with the inscription: “Custom Made for Fat Bill by the Gambler, 8-24-00. Happy Birthday.”
“Fat Bill” and the Gambler, legendary figures in the shadowy realm of dogfighting, have earned the distinction of “dogmen” – professionals in the blood spectacle.
The term is part of a clandestine covenant many use to avoid prosecution for an activity that was once a misdemeanor in all states but is now a felony everywhere but Wyoming and Idaho. The fight itself is called a “show,” and dogs with superior fighting traits are said to have “gameness.”
True dogmen “are like the Yankees or the Red Sox – major league players,” said a local former pit-bull breeder who is knowledgeable about dogfighting and spoke on the condition that he not be named. “The guys on the local level, they’re more like the Tides or Tidewater Sharks – bush-leaguers.”
The local breeder said he has met Vick but declined to comment on what, if anything, he knows about Vick’s connection to dogfighting activities. He did say, however, that Vick “was taken advantage of by friends and acquaintances.” He also knew Reynolds, who was sentenced by a federal judge in Roanoke to 30 months in prison in 2001.
Along with the treadmill, authorities seized from Reynolds’ trailer in rural Virginia syringes, steroids – which are often used to pump up fighting dogs – and copies of underground dogfighting magazines, one of which, the American Gamedog Times, Reynolds was said to have published.
Treadmills are often used to train fighting dogs; “bait animals” such as cats are sometimes placed in cages just out of range of the charging dog, which is rewarded by getting to feast on the cat after the training session.
At the time of his arrest, Reynolds operated a now-defunct Web site that sold videos of pit-bull fighting with titles such as “The Art of Victory,” “Snooty and Crunch” and “Bronson and Header.”
When Reynolds was sentenced in August 2001, federal Judge Samuel Wilson remarked from the bench on Reynolds’ “insensitivity to life.” Before Wilson issued the sentence, “Fat Bill” said, “Everything just kind of snowballed and got out of hand. I’m so sorry.”
Now free, Reynolds was contacted by a reporter recently and asked whether he would give an interview. He said he found the idea “intriguing” but did not return follow-up phone calls.
Tant was among those who testified before the federal grand jury that indicted Reynolds. His South Carolina attorney, Michael Bosnak, says Tant was granted immunity from prosecution for his cooperation in the Reynolds case.
Dogs go at it in staged fights in places like Afghanistan (pictured) and Serbia … and North Carolina and Virginia.
But that did not stop members of a new South Carolina state animal-fighting task force from bringing charges after a raid on Tant’s property in 2004.
That April, a land surveyor was injured by birdshot fired by a booby trap Tant had planted on his property to keep intruders away.
Investigators confiscated from T ant’s property 47 dogs, cattle prods, treadmills, five more armed booby traps and a framed photo of Tant’s grand champion Yellow, whose pedigree is one of the most revered – and expensive – in the world of dogmen. Offspring of Yellow, who died in 1994, can fetch several thousand dollars each.
Mayday was one of them. After he died in 2002, this tribute appeared online:
“Like we speak of the Tombstone, the Eli, the Yellow blood, so too will we and the generations after us … speak of the great and dominating MAYDAY blood. May he live … forever.”
The Internet has revolutionized the way dogmen do business, making it easier for members of the secret society to find and learn from one another.
Mark Kumpf, formerly Norfolk’s senior humane officer and now the director of the Montgomery County, Ohio, Animal Resource Center, noted a parallel with another class of social pariahs.
“The Internet has brought two groups to prominence, and that’s the pedophiles and the dogfighters,” he said.
Through the Internet, dogfighters research how to treat injuries, pick up training techniques and discuss tactics, Kumpf said. The newest craze, he said, is to broadcast fights on the Web so people can bet on them offshore.
The stakes are rising in what is now a half-billion-dollar industry as animal-rights groups turn up the heat on prosecutors and the number of task forces increases.
In August, a suspected dogfighter in Texas bled to death after he was shot by intruders who apparently intended to torture him into revealing where he had hidden $100,000 wagered in a high-stakes dog match.
In Ohio earlier this year, 28 people were indicted in state and federal court after an inquiry by state investigators and a federal task force.
And earlier this month, the feds, apparently concerned that local investigators were dragging their feet, intervened in the investigation into the suspected operation at Vick’s house. No charges have been filed.
Those who post on Web sites in the United States, where enforcement is growing, often include disclaimers noting that the sponsors do not encourage or condone dogfighting. They also state that any accounts of fights are fictional.
But those who maintain Web sites in countries where dogfighting is not criminalized often make no effort to conceal their purpose.
“Hallo and Welcome to all lovers of fighting dogs!” exclaims the Balkan Boys Kennel based in Serbia. The site posts the “Cajun rules” for dogfighting, which are the pre-eminent set of regulations among today’s dogmen.
The rules were promulgated in the 1950s by Lafayette, La., Police Chief G.A. “Gaboon” Trahan, who hosted dogfights that drew attendees from all over the South long before animal activists demonized the activity and legislatures criminalized it.
To hear “Chopper Dan” Brouseaux, another Lafayette native son, tell it, dogfighting is as ingrained in the Southern culture as NASCAR and has been around much longer.
“Cajuns and black people have been fighting dogs for 200 years,” said Brouseaux, a dog breeder and former merchant seaman who said he has never been involved in the activity.
Still, Brouseaux, 60, remembers the day that the events were a Saturday ritual “that would draw 50 to 100 people, and there would be guys selling popcorn and chewing gum.”
He sells his dogs as “Staffordshire terriers” rather than pit bull terriers on the advice of his lawyer, he says.
He lives not far from Floyd Boudreaux, now 72 and regarded by some as the “godfather” of dogfighting. Despite Boudreaux’s notoriety, authorities have had difficulty prosecuting him, Brouseaux said.
During one raid, “they killed all his dogs while he was in jail over the weekend,” Brouseaux said. “They massacred them. I was ashamed to be an American.”
The Humane Society’s Goodwin bristles at those who romanticize dogfighting, saying, “Law enforcement is realizing it’s a real community problem, intertwined with other crimes” such as drugs and gambling.
He cited one raid that turned up an electrocution device in a garage that had been used to kill dogs.
A yard in Louisiana where dogs were seized in 2005. Today, North Carolina is said to be one of the nation’s most active dogfighting venues – and Virginia gets the overflow.
Another law effort in Newton, Mass., turned up dogs with broken legs and one whose tongue had been ripped out.
Pit bulls have become iconic in the rap and hip-hop music culture. Missy Elliott and
rapper DMX feature the animals on album covers, and an unedited version of rapper Jay-Z’s video “99 Problems” features footage of dogs preparing to fight in a pit as spectators watch.
Dogfighting has also caught on within some gang cultures, where “there is less revulsion to violence,” Goodwin said.
Though dogfighting remains primarily a Southern phenomenon, the center of gravity in recent years apparently has shifted eastward. Today, if there’s a dogfighting capital in the United States, it may be North Carolina.
One of several magazines that provide services for pit-bull fanciers, the Pit Bull Advertiser, is published in Gastonia. It features ads for more than 20 North Carolina-based kennels, offering dogs for sale, stud services and a variety of products, including canine treadmills.
The magazine features kennels with names such as Outlaw, Rampage and Lockjaw, and characteristics of some of the featured dogs like Blondie, with “ability, style and one of those mouths that would break you into pieces.”
Another advertiser is Tom Garner of Hillsborough, N.C., who Goodwin insists is a patriarch of dogfighting in America. His name is contained in Goodwin’s database.
Garner, convicted of dogfighting in the mid-1980s, insists he breeds dogs and sells only puppies these days – none for fighting. If buyers use them for illegal purposes, Garner says, there’s nothing he can do to stop them.
His prize dogs included legendary grand champions Chinaman and Spike. “I still have frozen semen off of Spike and have made some breedings that have produced some excellent offspring,” Garner notes on his kennel Web site.
Garner’s name came up earlier this year when Orange County, N.C., officials created a task force to study the legality of tethering dogs. Garner failed in his effort to be named to the committee, but one of its members was Alane Koki, who purportedly has ties to Garner’s dog-breeding operation.
Koki, a published scientist and cancer researcher, is perhaps one of the most unusual alleged dogfighters on Goodwin’s list. After an independent weekly newspaper in the Raleigh area published stories about her links to Garner – she reportedly operated a kennel called Thundermaker Bulldogs – she resigned from the committee while denying any wrongdoing.
Dogfighting in North Carolina can now be found from the coastal flatlands to the mountainous west, say Goodwin and others who monitor the activity. The state’s vast expanses of piney wilderness are a lure for dogmen, some of them forced out of South Carolina in recent years.
Others have traveled to the Tar Heel State, where until a few years ago dogfighting was a misdemeanor, from Virginia, where it has long been a felony.
A dog recovered in California in 2006. Dogfighting is a felony in all states except Wyoming and Idaho.
One of them is the local breeder who knows what it’s like to gather with other men late at night on a moonlit landing strip, in a wooded clearing or in an abandoned warehouse, with thousands of dollars riding on thick-chested beasts named Lil Hitler, Crunch and So Evil.
The fight is euphemistically called a “show,” according to the local breeder, who said the rearing of a competitive dog can take up to two years.
Potential champion dogs are the product of cross-breeding between animals that often have champion pedigrees. Aggressive dogs are identified early on as “prospects” and receive special treatment. At 8 or 9 months, a less-aggressive littermate is placed in front of the chained prospect “to see how aggressive he is.”
The first competition, called a “roll,” usually takes place at about 15 months when two prospects are allowed to “have at it” for about 10 minutes, the breeder said.
“You want to see how your dog – I’ll call him Joe – takes the pressure,” he said. “Certain dogs go for certain areas. Yellow, he went for the head and chest. You like to see that.”
The prospect is put “back on chain” until it is about 19 months old, when a second practice session is held, lasting up to an hour.
If Joe looks good, he’s ready for “the show.”
Four or five backers ante up a few hundred dollars apiece for a “first time out” dog, the breeder said. The prospect is now “open to the world.” A pot of about $3,500 is typical. A “show” is scheduled, and a judge chooses the location.
An intensive six-week training routine follows, and the dog is said to be in “the keep.” He is fed a lean, nutritional diet – some trainers have secret diets – and works out on a treadmill every day.
Many dogs in training often swim in a pool. The circular above-ground pool discovered at the house owned by Vick was typical of those used for getting fighting dogs into shape, the breeder said. One hour on the treadmill and two in the pool is a common regimen.
Trainers often try to gain advantages by injecting dogs with steroids or sharpening the animal s’ teeth. Some even shave the dog’s fur and mix roach killer with its food, hoping the bitter taste of the new fur will repel a foe.
“The show” takes place at a secluded location in a makeshift wooden pit about 2½ to 3 feet high and 8 feet square, often with a dirt or carpeted floor for traction. A dog that fails to make weight may forfeit, forcing its owner to surrender an amount equal to half the purse.
Before the match, the dogs are washed, each by his foe’s owner, to ensure that the animal’s fur has not been coated with poison. The handlers sometimes use Everclear, a brand of grain alcohol, to wash, and milk to rinse.
The dogs are taken to their respective corners and released after the command of “face your dogs” by the judge. The competition continues until one animal retreats or is injured so severely it is unable to continue.
The first victory for a fighting dog is the beginning of his “campaign,” which can result in a champion (three victories) or a grand champion (five victories with no losses).
After his campaign, a champion dog can command sizable stud fees. Mayday earned $100,000 a year for his services, the breeder said.
“I look at it a lot like boxing,” said the local breeder. “You’ve got your power fighters and your finesse fighters, your power dogs and your finesse dogs. And they can make their owners a whole lot of money.”
Staff writers Dave Forster and Ed Miller contributed to this report.
Bill Burke, (757) 446-2589,
bill.burke@pilotonline.com
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Joined: 25 Mar 2006
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Posted:
Tue Sep 18, 2007 7:41 pm |
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I don't think that Vick, nor his friends were engaged in dogfighting because of any type of cultural pride. I don't think that Vick was taken advantage of either...he was educated enough to sign contracts for million of dollars.
They just did it cause they could & they wanted to, not because they were raised to do it or believe that it was okay to do it. They could have invested the money in something that really showcased some type of cultural heritage if they were so damn proud. They did not. They chose to kill dogs to make money.
That's my opinion.
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Click your heels together...
Joined: 14 Aug 2006
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Location: "Onboard" pathenry's desk
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Posted:
Tue Sep 18, 2007 7:48 pm |
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| Katie wrote: | Who the fuck said heritage,
Dog Fighting has been a southern past time for generations, see links but it is now becoming popular in urban America.
Its not a new thing, is it.
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I said heritage. Whoopi said upbringing.
Substitute upbringing for heritage. My opinion doesn't change with either word.
I am talking specifically about the Michael Vick/Bad Newz Kennels case. I am not talking about every person that has ever engaged in dogfighting.
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Click your heels together...
Joined: 14 Aug 2006
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Location: "Onboard" pathenry's desk
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| SavannahStar
Posted:
Tue Sep 18, 2007 7:50 pm |
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| resigned wrote: | I don't think that Vick, nor his friends were engaged in dogfighting because of any type of cultural pride. I don't think that Vick was taken advantage of either...he was educated enough to sign contracts for million of dollars.
They just did it cause they could & they wanted to, not because they were raised to do it or believe that it was okay to do it. They could have invested the money in something that really showcased some type of cultural heritage if they were so damn proud. They did not. They chose to kill dogs to make money.
That's my opinion.
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My opinion too, Pat.
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They chose to kill dogs to make money. |
And I believe there was literal enjoyment out of it too. You know, like some kids like to pull wings off flies? Sick.
If Vick thought it was so "okay" because of the culture he was raised in  he wouldn't have so denied it when it first came out, and lied about it. Naw, he knew it was wrong. And disgusting. He knows it even better now. Goodbye $$$$$$$, Vick.....goodbye NFL.....goodbye football.......  Too bad, so sad. Piece of shit Vick. 
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