PHOTO: Nearly 200 roosters held at Arkansas jail after raid on cockfighting operation

Nearly 200 roosters are being held on the grounds of the Sevier County jail in southwest Arkansas after a raid on a suspected cockfighting operation that netted more than 100 arrests, authorities said.
Nearly 200 roosters are being held on the grounds of the Sevier County jail in southwest Arkansas after a raid on a suspected cockfighting operation that netted more than 100 arrests, authorities said.

Nearly 200 roosters are being kept on the grounds of an Arkansas county jail after authorities raided a suspected cockfighting operation Saturday.

Sevier County Sheriff Robert Gentry said they will remain there until a court decides where to place them. The birds are being kept in wire cages and cared for by jail inmates, he added.

The raid netted more than 100 arrests, the Texarkana Gazette reported. Warrants were reportedly served by the Sevier County sheriff's office, the De Queen Police Department, the South Central Drug Task Force, Arkansas State Police, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, the U.S. Forestry Agency, the U.S. Wildlife Service and the Department of Homeland Security.

A tweet from Greg Rae, colonel of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission law enforcement's division, mentioned U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but Gentry said that agency was not involved and that the investigation was not racially motivated.

Only one of the arrestees will be detained, Gentry said, due to an unrelated search warrant from a decade earlier.

Still, the Arkansas United Community Coalition, a Springdale-based immigrant support group, said it would offer legal assistance to immigrant families affected by the raid.

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