The reality of dog fighting

When it was just the gangs running dog fights, the cops could ignore it. But now children are doing it, cheering on dogs in fights to the death in alleys and empty lots. Dog fighting has become a "pervasive poison," officials say, and its victims are not only the dogs. Children are growing up on a blood sport. The potential for damage to their hearts and minds is frightening.

When an animal welfare official visited a fourth-grade classroom on the West Side recently, he asked the kids, "Who has seen a dog fight?"

Every hand shot up.

"I don't mean Molly slipping out of the yard," he said.

Again, every hand shot up.

Yet only one Chicago police officer--Sgt. Steve Brownstein--works full time on the problem. Since May 1999, Brownstein has seized 700 dogs and made 200 arrests. He has had bricks thrown at him, been picketed and has alienated a number of fellow officers. They call him "Dogman."

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The dogs are taken from airless garages, from abandoned apartments, from dark basements. Already a crowd is gathering. The dogs have heavy chains on their necks and deep, untreated gashes on their legs and faces. A circle forms--lots of children. Bets are taken. The dogs are kicked or "bumped"--slammed together to get them going. Usually that's all it takes. The dogs bite and rip each other, snarling, spattering blood. The crowd cheers, shouts encouragement. Sometimes the dogs are separated by a pry bar, to prolong the fight. Eventually one is the victor and the other, if it is lucky, dead. Money changes hands.

It happens every day in Chicago, and also frequently in the suburbs and Downstate. What started out as a recreation and gambling sport among gang members has spread to the larger community, with even young children raising stray dogs and fighting them in such numbers that officials call it "an epidemic."

"It's definitely getting worse," said Catherine Hedges, shelter supervisor of Chicago's Fury Friends Foundation. "I see abuse from dog fighting on an almost daily basis. Nearly every day a volunteer comes back from walking a pit bull to say somebody approached them and said: `How much do you want for that dog?' They think he would make a good fighter. They don't want the dog as a pet. They don't want to take it to the park and play. They want it as a fighter."

Staging dog fights is a felony, but cases are difficult to prove. Dogs can't testify, and police officers, already overburdened by the relentless crush of crime against humans, do not put a high priority on trying to solve them. Except one: Sgt. Steve Brownstein, a 46-year-old officer who wages a one-man crusade against the abuse of animals, particularly dogs, particularly dogs that are forced to fight and kill each other.

Brownstein has seized 700 animals since May 1999, and made 200 arrests. Operating out of the public housing unit at 51st and Wentworth, he strolls through the projects, chatting with residents, about rumors of dogfights and animal hidden in basements. Holding a flashlight, he crunches through the gloomy rubble of abandoned apartments, looking for chained dogs guarding drug stashes.

He has seen a lot.

"They beat these animals," he said. "They feed them hot peppers. Feed them gunpowder. Lock them in small closets. They do everything they can to make these animals vicious and mean." Brownstein said trainers will starve dogs, then throw a piece of meat between them and have the dogs kill each other for it. They'll put heavy weights on the animals to build up their strength. When there is a dogfight, if the wounded dog does not die, they will throw it alive on a garbage dump or leave it in a vacant lot or apartment to die a slow death.

"The more fortunate dogs are the ones that die during the fight instead of after the fight," he said.

People will set dogs on fire when they lose a fight, or something worse. "I've had dog fighters tell me, including teenagers, they're angry at a dog if it loses a fight, they want it to suffer, that's why they leave it locked in a closet to die a slow death of its injuries."

Brownstein has seen children snap the necks of puppies, and it is the dehumanizing effect that such violence has on children that worries him most. He remembers one 12-year-old boy, "Speedy," who he first met when he impounded the boy's dog for fighting, and next heard of after the boy had raped a 7-year-old girl. The two events are not unconnected in Brownstein's view.

"I think that when a child enjoys the suffering of an animal, has no empathy and compassion, it becomes very easy for that same child to grow into a teenager and adult who can inflict pain upon fellow humans and still have no empathy or compassion."

Despite his humanitarian zeal, Brownstein has made a lot of enemies. Top police brass work to undermine him and some of his fellow officers call him "Dogman" and "Gomer Pyle," for his awkward, flapping manner.

Unsurprisingly, those whose dogs he has seized are his fiercest critics, picketing Brownstein and peppering him with official complaints.

"He's gone crazy," said dog trainer Walter Ward, who had his dogs seized this summer by Brownstein. "He does good, but he does a lot of wrong. . . . Someone has to stop him."

Even Brownstein's allies admit that he is a man on a mission.

"He's a driven individual, and at times that can be his undoing," said Dr. Gene Mueller, president of the Chicago Anti-Cruelty Society, which just named Brownstein its Humanitarian of the Year. "He's drowning in these reports [of abuse]. How can we expect him to follow up on them all? It's impossible. People say this is all Steve Brownstein, but it's so much larger, and has to be tackled. He needs more assistance, more resources."

Dogfighting is a Class 4 felony that could, in theory, bring three years in prison. Even witnessing a dogfight is a misdemeanor. But felony dog fighting prosecutions are rare: there have been just nine in Cook County in the past two years.

"It's so common. You continually hear calls about dog fighting on the radio. But the attitude is: `They're expendable; who cares?' " said a police officer in the Deering police district on the South Side. "The state's attorney will not approve felony charges for dog fighting."

The state's attorney's office said it is aware of the problem and doing all it can.

"The people doing it are becoming more bold," said John Gorman, a spokesman for the Cook County state's attorney's office. "It is moving out of the basements and into the parking lots and empty lots. More dogs are being killed and maimed, and when these cases are brought to us, we prosecute them as best we can."

Still, many police officers are not aware of the felony dogfighting law, even though it has been on the books for more than a decade, said Mueller, the former head of the city's Animal Care and Control Department.

"There have been less than a handful of prosecuted cases," said Mueller. "Because animal welfare laws are contained within agricultural law--an archaic, infrequently used part of the code--the police officer on the street, the reviewing desk sergeant, the state's attorney at the district, didn't recognize the criminal code."

It is not that police are unsympathetic. Many officers in inner-city neighborhoods have stories of grim encounters with dogs abused by gangs.

"Before I was a lieutenant, I worked on a tactical team and went on narcotics raids," said Lt. Nick Rotti of the Calumet district on the Far South Side. "We'd come across dogs . . . it's heartbreaking to see the things that are done to them. I've seen dogs on raids, they leave them chained in these abandoned buildings or basements where they hide their drug stash. I've actually seen the skeleton of a dog chained to a pole in a basement. The dog just starved to death. They left it there to lie dead."

The bigger problem, police say, is building a felony case.

"You have to keep in mind, without admissions and without facts to support it, it's very difficult to get that felony upgrade," said Pat Camden, a spokesman for the police department. "When the facts support a felony, the state's attorney's office has been more than cooperative."

A lack of statistics on dog fighting is one sign of how recently officials have come to understand the severity of the problem. Only last year did the city began keeping track of emergency calls regarding animals. So far this year, 1,764 complaints of animal abuse have come into 911--triple the rate of last year--with another 2,061 complaints of "inhuman treatment" of animals to 311.

"We've done community education, tried to help people see the relationship between animal abuse and interpersonal violence," said Ted O'Keefe, director 311 City Services. "We've come to an awareness that this is a problem, not just in terms of animals, but a problem that can have an impact on our children as well."

Indeed, concern for dog fighting is growing not out of heightened sympathy for the dogs, but from a recognition that violence against animals can lead directly to violence against humans.

"This is a child welfare issue," said Brownstein. "I do hear, from people, that this is about animals. `People are shooting each other and this is about dogs.' My response is that in addition to the fact that this is extremely cruel to the animals, it is a fact that when children and teenagers become desensitized and sometimes actually enjoy the sufferings of animals it then becomes a small step for them to commit violence toward their fellow human beings."

Mueller said he did not fully understand the impact of dog fighting on children until a chilling encounter as principal for a day at a West Side magnet school.

"I was in a fourth grade classroom--10-year-olds, 11-year-olds--and the subject came up," he said. "I said, `Let's talk about dog fighting. Who has seen dog fighting?' Every hand shot up. I said, `I don't mean Molly slipping out of the yard.' Every hand. It was unanimous. The kids said it happens all the time, in the alleys."

Mueller remembers in particular four boys in the class.

"These four little boys--10-year-old boys--said that this was so exciting, that there was nothing as exciting in their neighborhood. This is not a violent video game. These children are seeing in first person this incredible cruelty. . . . This is not the cause of violence, but we have this terrible, unrecognized poison in many neighborhoods in Chicago that our children are being exposed to."

Worse than a child witnessing a strange dog in a fight, Mueller said, is when it is a dog that the child has learned to love, usually while the adults are waiting for it to grow old enough to fight.

"Pit bulls are used for currency--someone will give a pit bull puppy instead of $20," said Mueller. "They'll raise the puppy. Build trust, and over the course of a year, the dog grows and gets bigger. Then the person in charge of the family--the dad, the cousin--says, `We're going to fight it.' They take it out in the alley to fight. You can imagine these children having this animal they may have developed love and empathy for, out in the alley. All the other neighbors are there. They're cheering. They're screaming. The whole neighborhood. One of the animals loses, which itself is a terrible tragedy. But then there are these 10-year-old kids."

Dog fighting is a particular problem in the city, but it is certainly not limited to urban areas. Earlier this year, Brownstein consulted Elgin police on dog fighting after officers began receiving complaints.

"I don't think there is any part of the state that doesn't have some form of dog fighting," said Officer Chuck Thomas, a 16-year veteran of Joliet Township Animal Control. "What police run into most are the backyard fights. But there's also big money in it. It's organized. There are professional fighting rings all over. It's very, very hard [to crack down on]."

Compounding the problem is the difficulty of locating, never mind gathering evidence on, a dog fight, fleeting encounters which are either hidden from view or easily dispersed at the glimpse of a squad car.

Just last week, Chicago police Officer Lyteshia Gunn, responding to a report of a dog fight in the 10100 block of South Lafayette, saw a group of neighbors gathered around two teenage boys, each holding a pit bull on a leash.

By the time she pulled over and got out of her car, the group had scattered. Soon Brownstein and half a dozen other officers were on the scene, which was spread over a block. At the center were two bloodied pit bulls.

"How long have you had these dogs for?" Brownstein asked some men nearby. "You know there was a fight going on."

Nobody was telling. The matter took almost a half hour to sort out. Two men were handcuffed and put in a squad car, and two teens, 13 and 14, claiming ownership of the dogs, were also arrested.

"I don't know nothing about no dog fight," said one of the boys, who said his dog had no name. "I just call it `girl."' Asked about the wounds and the fresh blood glistening on the dog's legs, the boy said: "That ain't blood."

Several officers stood watching Brownstein conduct the investigation.

"We get calls on this constantly. It's a daily thing," said Chicago police officer Larry Dotson. "By the time we arrive, unfortunately, the dogs are already gone. Or they'll leave the loser, maimed, as we arrive."

At least one of Brownstein's superiors described Brownstein as a "loose cannon." But his most vocal critics tend to be the people he has arrested.

One of them, Doris Blumenberg, of the 10800 block of South Parnell, said Brownstein kicked open a door in a business where she works and seized six dogs without cause.

"There are so many complaints on this man, it's incredible," she said. "How long has he been doing this? . . . He only takes blacks' and Hispanics' dogs."

Blumenberg claims she is not a trainer and was not responsible for the dogs. But in court she pleaded guilty of cruelty to animals. And her neighbor said she has personally seen her hauling dead dogs out to the garbage.

"She was fighting these dogs," said Bernadette Lewis, 31. "She was supposedly training them, but she would leave the dogs in the basement, all the windows boarded up, no air, no food, no water. They were just in there dying. They were eating each other, and all the dead dogs she would put them in garbage bags put them in garbage cans at the side of my house and leave them there for weeks at a time."

The stench was almost unbearable, Lewis said.

"It's a money thing," she said. "They bet. We saw it plenty of times. These dogs, all they want is for someone to love 'em and care for 'em. They're not asking to be abused. They don't want nobody to abuse them. It's a shame. It really is a shame."

While Brownstein's obsessive manner turns some off, others see beyond to what he is trying to do.

"His social skills aren't the best," said Hedges, from the Fury Friends Foundation. "But he is doing the right thing. He definitely is not crazy, definitely not a menace. Everyone thinks he's the bad guy, but he's risking his life to try to end the No. 1 form of abuse toward these animals. The police department should be supporting him."

Indeed, the police department stands behind Brownstein. Recently, after several months of working alone, he was assigned a new partner.

"Obviously, we don't think he's crazy," said Camden. "We think he's very dedicated to what he's doing and takes a personal interest."

"This is not something that exists solely in Steve Brownstein's head; I wish it was," said Mueller, who calls dogfighting "an epidemic." "The terrible reality, I can tell you, after being at Animal Control for many years, is this is a pervasive poison in almost all the wards in the city of Chicago. This is not a black issue, not a white issue, not a Hispanic issue. All types, all creeds, are fighting animals out there. They do it for gambling. They do it for fun. It's a terrible problem."