Grand Bay cockfighting ring had stadium seats, concession stands, investigator says

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    MOBILE, Alabama (WALA) — It was an anonymous tip that first brought Mobile County sheriff’s deputies to a private drive off of Stable Road in Grand Bay over the summer.

Cpl. Lonnie Parsons Jr. said Darrel Zemon Jackson, who owns the property, was behind a fence.

“He met them at the gate and asked, essentially, ‘Are you here for the cockfighting?’” said Parsons, an investigator with the Sheriff’s Office who recounted on Monday how law enforcement officers broke up an operation that was both elaborate and brazen.

The officers were not undercover, Parsons said; they were uniformed deputies. He said when they were escorted to the back of the property, they found 80-some people, many of whom took off running. He said deputies detained almost 50 people.

Jackson, 64 pleaded guilty last week to cruelty to animals, a misdemeanor, and paid a $2,000 fine. Parsons said the defendant admitted to making $200 for each event held on his land.

Defense attorney Jeff Deen said his client took responsibility for hosting the events.

“He didn’t have anything to do with gambling, or getting that take from the gambling,” he said.

Parsons said deputies recovered 63 roosters and turned them over to animal control, which has worked to rehome the animals.

That saved them, he said, from a vicious existence.

“The roosters would be weighed,” he said. “They would put into certain classes, and they would essentially be put up against the same weight class as another chicken. And they would fight these chickens to the death. That’s the only way you could choose a winner.”

Parsons said the layout include three large pens. He described an atmosphere reminiscent, in some ways, of a football game.

“The structure contained concession stands, a large leaderboard,” he said. “It contained stadium-style seating.”

Parsons said people raise their own roosters, training them to fight. The leaderboard kept track of the participants, roosters with names like Cherry Vally, Steel Slinger and Killer B’s.

People could get hot dogs, chicken fingers and hot chocolate while they cheered on the birds and placed their bets, Parsons said. He said he believes, but cannot prove, that the seats came from the Hollywood Stadium 18 movie theater that got torn down to make way for Topgolf in McGowin Park.

This isn’t the first time a large cockfighting operation has been uncovered in Mobile County. Authorities raided one in Citronelle in 2019. An undercover report in 2012 by WSFA in Montgomery spotlighted the issue.

Parsons said he believes the Grand Bay operation was a muti-state ring that moves between Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

“We were able to determine that we had cars from Louisiana, Mississippi,” he said. “I believe we had some from Georgia. We had cars all the way from Florida. It was a multi-state operation, very sophisticated.”

Prosecutors last week dropped cockfighting charges against several defendants because of insufficient evidence. A couple of others pleaded guilty to misdemeanor gambling charges. Nine others pleaded guilty in August. A judge fined them $50:

Son Ngol Tran, 72, of Biloxi. Huu Ba Tran, 54, of Grand Bay. Long V. Gip, 40, of Marrero, Louisiana. Truong Thien Dinh, 43, of Irvington. Bruce A. Grimsley, 42, of Gulfport. Chinh H. Tran, 48, of D’Iberville. Van Duong, 73, of Bayou La Batre. Charles Eley Furby III, 36, of Moss Point. Thi D. Le, 36, of New Orleans. That $50 fine was the maximum under the law. Parsons said that is one of the reasons why the participates were so brazen. He said surrounding states have tougher laws than Alabama, where the cockfighting statute dates to the 19th century and prescribes a fine between $20 and $50.

“There’s no crime, essentially,” he said. “They came here because it’s so lenient that they can go back to their home and not have to worry about anything.”

Parsons said cockfighting is a felony under federal law. It would be up to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Mobile to decide whether to pick up the case.

Parsons said state prosecutors managed to make some gambling cases by arguing that the roosters were gambling instruments. For instance, 63-year-old Gulfport resident Tom Ngo pleaded guilty last week to simple gambling. A judge fined him $500.

The punishment is for that misdemeanor is light, Parsons said, but the cockfighting charge ranks even lower. He said it is a ticket violation, akin to a traffic offense.

“I can’t put the cuffs on him,” he said. “I can only write you a ticket and send you on your way.”

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