11 held, fowls seized at post-curfew cockfight

Police and military personnel swooped down on Kingsland district in Kitson Town, St Catherine, detaining 11 persons who attended a cockfight after curfew on Sunday.

Residents of the farming community were surprised when the security forces approached the wooded site of the cockfight about 3 p.m. The islandwide COVID-19 curfew begins at 2 p.m. on Sundays.

Approximately 100 people attended the event. The vast majority were able to elude the police dragnet.

Two cocks were also seized.

The detainees were escorted to the nearby Guanaboa Vale Police Station and were expected to be charged for breaches of the Disaster Risk Management Act.

Cockfights are illegal in Jamaica but draw crowds in hideaways where bettors spend great sums in wagers.

The sport contravenes the Cruelty to Animals Act of 1904, which was amended in 1995. Under the law, every person who, by willful negligence, causes any injury or suffering to any animal, is guilty of a crime.

Persons who encourage, aid, or assist at the fighting or baiting of any bull, dog, cock, or other kind of animal, whether domestic or wild, or keeps, or uses, or acts in the management of any place to be used for the purpose of fighting or baiting any such animals are also guilty of an offence.

“Sometimes dem give the fowl dem vitamins and medicine that dem fight to the death before even knowing dat dem injure,” a resident, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Gleaner.