Michigan: MI: 3 pit bulls left behind DETROIT

3 pit bulls left behind
Bloody carpet found; suspects sought in dogfight
August 13, 2007

BY BEN SCHMITT
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Animal cruelty investigators and police continued searching Sunday for suspects in a dogfighting operation broken up over the weekend.

No one was in custody Sunday.

Investigators found three injured pit bulls in parked cars Saturday. They also found remnants from a fighting pit near an auto shop, which may have doubled as an illegal after-hours bar in the 14000 block of Linwood.

Mark Ramos, a cruelty investigator for the Michigan Humane Society's Detroit office, said Sunday that the dogs, which had bite wounds on their necks, legs and bodies, would be put down.

"Some of them are pretty chewed up," said Ramos, who costarred on the cable TV show "Animal Cops: Detroit." "The wounds are definitely consistent with dogfighting."

Detroit police patrol officers recovered a 3-foot-tall trophy reading: "The Gamest of Show, Aug. 10, 2007."

The trophy, which was dropped by a fleeing man around 5 a.m. Saturday outside the garage, had a gold-plated dog figure that investigators said had to be special-ordered. Several other men outside the auto shop fled into a wooded area, police said.

Humane Society investigators searched the garage Saturday afternoon and found a rolled-up, bloodstained carpet in an adjoining garage along with plywood boards believed to have been used as walls for a dogfighting pit.

They also found syringes and a scale used to weigh the animals, as well as a couple of pails and sponges believed to be used for wiping down the dogs.

The three pit bulls each weigh 40 to 50 pounds.

Police seized 11 vehicles parked at the auto shop, which had a stocked bar and pool tables inside. "We're getting calls from people trying to get their vehicles," Ramos said Sunday. "We're trying to sort out how to put a case together."

Besides the Detroit raid, there have been significant dogfighting cases throughout the region this summer.

Ricky Lee Lynch, 26, of Ypsilanti Township is charged with eight counts of dogfighting and is awaiting trial for allegedly using fighting pit bulls seized from his home June 15.

Investigators with the Humane Society of Huron Valley in Ann Arbor took 17 pit bulls -- nine puppies and eight adults -- from a fenced-in area in Lynch's yard.

The dogs had scarring on their legs, necks and faces, investigators said.

All 17 were put down.

In Pontiac, cruelty investigators found three wounded pit bulls chained separately to trees in a cemetery last month. No one has been arrested.

Deborah MacDonald, interim facility director for the Humane Society's Detroit office, said that criminal dogfighting allegations against Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick have raised awareness of the problem.

"I don't think people really realized how brutal dogfighting was," MacDonald said. "I don't think they realized how much the animals suffered. And I don't think people realized how prevalent it was and how many people accepted it as the norm."

Anyone with information on Saturday's raid is asked to call the Michigan Humane Society at 313-872-3401. Contact BEN SCHMITT at 313-223-4296 or bcschmitt@freepress.com.

Copyright ©2007 the Detroit Free Press

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