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Police: Dogfight arrest made |
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Tuesday, 15 January 2008 |
Authorities have made the first arrest in connection with the Jan. 3 raid of a suspected dogfighting ring in northeast Saline County near Shannon Hills.
Patrick Janiszewski, 25, of the Mabelvale area northeast Saline County faces 27 felony counts of dogfighting and 27 misdemeanor counts of cruelty to animals following his arrest Friday.
Saline County sheriff’s Lt. Mike Frost said more arrests are expected.
“We are getting more and more information that could be possibly be connected to the dogfighting raids,” Frost said Monday.
Janiszewski was arrested at his job in North Little Rock. He was released from the Saline County jail Friday after posting bail on a $37,500 bond, Frost said.
Janiszewski is scheduled to appear before Saline County District Judge Mike Robinson at 1 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 29.
Sheriff Phil Mask said authorities are pursuing suspects in Central Arkansas, but he said the investigation could lead to suspects living outside Saline County and Arkansas.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” Mask said. “We believe it is a part of a bigger ring.
“This is a big deal when you recover 36 pit bulls that have been fighting and are being trained to fight. I don’t think we have recovered all the dogs that have been fighting. Dog-fighting is a big money business all across the nation.”
More than six months ago, the Saline County Sheriff’s Department partnered with the Pulaski County Humane Society and the Humane Society of the United States after receiving tips that illegal dogfighting was taking place in northeast Saline County.
On Jan. 3, houses at 15001 Gingerbread Lane and 23001 U.S. 61 were raided and 36 pit bull dogs were recovered. A woman was taken into custody during the raid but was released after questioning by authorities.
The woman, whose name is not being released, could face charges of cruelty to animals and felony dogfighting, authorities said.
Jay Sabatucci, regional coordinator for the Humane Society of the United States, arrived Jan. 2 to help lawmen recover evidence and identify dogfighting sites. He said that many of the dogs found in the raid in the Shannon Hills area were “horribly scarred” and “indicative of dogfighting.”
Items commonly used to train and fight dogs were found at both residences, Sabatucci said.
“If you go out to those locations, you’ll find treadmills- or slapmills. There will be what we call spring poles, which are hides tied to a tree or ropes that animals will grab with their mouths and spring up and down with,” Sabatucci said.
“One of the facilities actually had a [dogfighting] pit with carpet with what appeared to be blood on it and it was a collapsable pit. They had beak sticks or parking sticks with what appeared to be blood on them, which is what they use to open the animals jaws during the fight when they get hung up.”
Mask said many of the dogs needed medical treatment.
“Some of those dogs were sickly,” Mask said. “Their faces had dog bites and [one dog] had a eye taken out ... we were able to get them treatment and get them back to their health.”
Frost and Mask said the process of shutting down dogfighting in Saline County is a difficult assignment because of the the “closed community” and because people involved with dogfighting are “tight-lipped” about the illegal activities.
“It is a very closed society and it is hard to be able to know when and where the dogfighting is occurring,” Frost added. “Many times we don’t know until the day of the dog fight and there is not enough time to get a search warrant. We are talking about a large amount of money, guns and drugs probably being involved in it.”
Mask said dogfighting can lead to other crimes.
“A lot of times we find out [about dog fights] within an hour or two [of the fight]. Rallying a SWAT team and/or officers within that time is difficult,” Mask said.
“When it happens in our community, not only does it bring in the bad element of bringing in dogs and the dogs getting hurt or killed from fighting, but they also bring in guns and drugs. They unleash robberies and burglaries, but hopefully we can deter these crimes in our community.”
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