Man arrested, 13 roosters euthanized after authorities bust cockfighting ring in Grant County

A 56-year-old man accused of dealing drugs and running a cockfighting ring was arrested Thursday morning in Grant County.

The Grant County Sheriff’s Office said deputies with the local Interagency Narcotics Enforcement Team, Quincy police officers and agents from the Washington State Gambling Commission arrested Reymundo Garcia while raiding a home in the town of Winchester, between Quincy and Ephrata.

The sheriff’s office said the raid followed a yearlong investigation, and inside the home authorities “found 13 birds that were physically modified to reduce blood loss during cockfighting.”

Kyle Foreman, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office, explained that cockfighters had removed the red combs and wattles from the heads of their roosters.

“They just rip them off, so that way when they’re fighting, that vascular fleshy tissue isn’t there to get torn and clawed at,” Foreman said.

The birds were wounded and traumatized and had to be euthanized, Foreman said.

Garcia was the only person arrested in connection to the cockfighting ring, but Foreman said the investigation would continue.

Regarding the scale of the cockfighting ring, Foreman said, “It’s enough of an operation that multiple agencies got involved.”

Garcia was jailed on charges of animal cruelty, possession of psilocybin mushrooms and cocaine, and possession with intent to deliver heroin and methamphetamine.