(Beth Clifton collage)
How big is the nationwide “107 Hoover Crips” gang in pit bull breeding & fighting?
TULSA, Oklahoma; BOSTON, Massachusetts; COLUMBIA, South Carolina––A week after the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Oklahoma on April 24, 2025 announced new charges against previously convicted dogfighter Julius Deane Griffin, 43, investigators are still trying to unravel dogfighting connections apparently extending from coast to coast.
Griffin is identified as a member of the 107 Hoover Crips, a drug-dealing African-American street gang reportedly begun as the Hoover Groovers more than fifty years ago in Los Angeles, now active as far away as New Jersey.
The Tulsa area 107 Hoover Crips were in 2013 named by the federal Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force for involvement in “drug dealing, extortion, and violence, including shootings.”
Julius Deane Griffin.
(Homeland Security Investigations photo)
Oklahoma bust went down day after Easter
According to a prepared statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Oklahoma, “Court documents show that the Creek County Sheriff’s Office began this investigation in 2024. On April 21, 2025, Homeland Security Investigations, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of Inspector General executed a search warrant at Griffin’s home,” southwest of Tulsa.
“Law enforcement seized 17 live pit bull-type dogs and other fighting dogs, and one deceased pit bull-type dog, among other evidentiary items,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
“The dogs seized were placed with outside caregivers. Some of the dogs exhibited missing and damaged body parts, visible scars, and open wounds, all consistent with dog fighting. The deceased dog exhibited visible scars and open wounds, consistent with dog fighting, and was recently deceased.
Julius Deane Griffin arrest by U.S. Marshals. (Homeland Security Investigations photo)
Evidence
“Law enforcement seized several other items from Griffin’s home,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office continued. “Among the items seized were ammunition, gun magazines, more than $16,000 in cash, more than 20 cellphones and electronic devices, trophies from dog fighting, dog treadmills, kennels, digital scales to weigh the dogs, dog food, Narcan, injectable steroids, syringes, and dog medications.
“Law enforcement further found clothing advertising the name of the illegal kennel, more than 700 grams of mushrooms, and a planner or drug ledger,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office added.
“Griffin advertised and publicized his illegal dog-fighting operation through social media,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
“Law enforcement’s review of that data shows communication, pictures, and videos related to controlled substances, firearms, domestic abuse, and dog fighting. One of the videoed dog fights revealed a child cheering on the fight.
Julius Deane Griffin arrest by U.S. Marshals.
(Homeland Security Investigations photo)
“Discussed dogs being injured, killed, murdered”
“In Griffin’s communication with others,” alleged the U.S. Attorney’s Office, “he discusses dogs being injured, killed, ‘murdered,’ and ‘dogs with their faces ripped off.’
“He also discusses merchandise with the illegal kennel’s slogan or name, which includes blue to align with [107 Hoover Crips] gang affiliation. Conversations with a ‘dog fighting commentator’ horrifically describe the graphic and violent fights that Griffin was involved in.”
Griffin was charged with 23 counts of illegal dog fighting; plus illegal possession, training, transport, delivery, sale and receipt of dogs intended to be used in an animal fighting venture; causing an individual under the age of 16 to attend an animal fighting venture; being a felon in possession of ammunition; possession of ammunition after a misdemeanor conviction for domestic violence; and assault with a dangerous weapon with intent to do bodily harm in Indian country, an indication that Griffin was apprehended and the pit bulls were impounded on or near the Creek Nation.
Julius Deane Griffin kennels.
(Homeland Security Investigations photo)
Previously convicted in 2005
“Court records show that Griffin was previously convicted in 2005 for his involvement in a separate dog fighting ring with more than 40 dogs. He was also convicted of domestic assault and battery in 2009,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office media release concluded.
The charges against Griffin were disclosed barely a month after the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma on March 25, 2025 unsealed a grand jury indictment charging former National Football League player Leshon Eugene Johnson, 58, with “possessing 190 pit bull-type dogs for use in an animal fighting venture, and for selling, transporting, and delivering a dog for use in an animal fighting venture,” according to a U.S. Department of Justice media release.
Johnson was allegedly operating from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, east of Tulsa but barely ten miles across Tulsa from Creek County.
(See Former NFL player Leshon Johnson hit again for pit bull fighting.)
John D. Murphy.
(Mass. U.S. District Attorney’s Office photo)
John D. Murphy sentenced
Griffin was charged for the second time with dogfighting about two weeks after the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts on April 9, 2025 announced that convicted dogfighter John D. Murphy, 51, of Hanson, Massachusetts, had become the first-ever person sentenced in Massachusetts for dogfighting in violation of federal law.
Murphy “was sentenced by U.S. Senior District Court Judge William G. Young to one year and one day in prison, with the last three months to be served in community confinement, followed by three years of supervised release,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts said.
“The defendant was also ordered to pay a fine of $10,000 and prohibited from possessing pit-bull type dogs. In November 2024, Murphy pleaded guilty to nine counts of possessing animals for use in an animal fighting venture, in violation of the federal Animal Welfare Act. Murphy was indicted by a federal grand jury in March 2024,” recounted the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.
John Murphy with pit bulls in fighting pit.
(Mass. U.S. District Attorney’s Office photo)
Investigation started in 2021
Murphy apparently came under investigation in 2021, when he “was identified discussing dogfighting on recorded calls with a New York-based dogfighting target. A subsequent search of his Facebook accounts revealed Murphy’s years-long involvement in dogfighting,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts disclosed.
“Murphy communicated with other dogfighters via Facebook,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office explained, “where they discussed the results of dogfights, injuries sustained by fighting dogs, as well as breeding dogs.
“Murphy also belonged to private dogfighting Facebook groups used to share fight results, buy and sell fighting dogs, and exchange information on training and conditioning fighting dogs, among other things.
“Photos and videos found on Murphy’s Facebook account showed a pit bull-type dog with scarring and discolorations on its head and leg consistent with that of dogfighting as well as a photo of a pit bull-type dog restrained in a breeding stand,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office detailed.
(Mass. U.S. District Attorney’s Office photo)
Treadmills
“Videos from his account showed pit bull-type dogs physically tethered to different treadmill-like devices,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office continued.
“One of the videos depicted a live raccoon caged in front of a carpet mill, to serve as a stimulus for the pit bull-type dog to run faster and harder.
Thirteen pit bulls were found in a June 2023 search of Murphy’s residence in Hanson, several of them scarred in a manner “consistent with being involved in organized dogfighting,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
In “WhatsApp messages between Murphy and other individuals discussing elements of dog fighting,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office alleged, “Murphy expressed his anger over having animal control called to his property,” acknowledged having spent 25 years breeding and conditioning fighting dogs, and asserting that he will “never never never” quit dogfighting.
Chained pit bull found by U.S. Justice Department raid in South Carolina.
(Meredith Lee/HSUS photo)
South Carolina cracks down
Earlier in the same week when Murphy was sentenced, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division in a two-day operation impounded 160 pit bulls, seizing 55 guns and “roughly 17 pounds of marijuana, one kilo of cocaine, 11 grams of crack cocaine, two grams of ketamine, 2,266 ecstasy pills and 990 fentanyl pills” under ten search warrants, reported Patrick Phillips and Mary Green for WCSC in Columbia, South Carolina.
Eleven suspects were arrested, mostly on multiple charges.
Nine suspects were charged with animal fighting, five with alleged drug offenses, and three for conspiracy.
One suspect, Gavin Mandell Miles, 44, was charged with unlawfully placing a child at risk.
South Carolina governor Henry McMaster.
(Wikipedia photo)
Henry McMaster
South Carolina governor Henry McMaster has pursued prosecutions of alleged dogfighters for more than 20 years, beginning as South Carolina attorney general from 2003 to 2011.
“McMaster has mentioned efforts to stop illegal animal fighting in the state in his past two State of the State addresses, calling it ‘one of the cruelest criminal activities in our society,’” Phillips and Green recalled.
“In 2023, at McMaster’s request, the South Carolina Law Enforcement division launched a unit specifically to combat dogfighting, with four permanent agents now part of it,” Phillips and Green continued, a year after the division hired one agent to focus on dogfighting.
That hiring, in September 2022, was followed within a month by charges against more than 20 people in what was believed to be “’the biggest takedown of a dogfighting operation in South Carolina history,’ according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” Phillips and Green said.
“The joint operation resulted in warrants issued in Richland, Orangeburg, Clarendon, Lee, Sumter, and York counties,” Phillips and Green detailed, bringing the impoundments of 305 pit bulls, 275 of them allegedly used in fighting.
(See Big dogfighting busts follow plea bargains by alleged perps in South Carolina.)
David Ray Tant. (Facebook photo)
David Ray Tant
Forming his first dogfighting task force in 2003, McMaster made his name as a foe of dogfighting in February 2004, when five men were arrested for felony cruelty, firearms, and drug offenses after 13 emaciated live pit bulls and five dead pit bulls were found at an abandoned farmhouse in Wilson County.
Two months later, on April 7, 2004, surveyor’s assistant Steven Baker, then 23, of Lincolnville, approached the edge of an 11-acre property owned by David Ray Tant, then 57, of North Charleston, a former witness in a federal criminal investigation, to see what Baker thought was a pack of baying hunting hounds in pursuit of an animal.
Baker stepped on a trip-wire and was shot in the chest by 24 birdshot pellets fired from an eight-inch pipe mounted about 60 feet away, Charleston County Sheriff s Department bomb squad commander Stafford Melerine later testified.
Beth & Merritt Clifton.
(Gene Chontos photo)
More than 40 pit bulls and dogfighting training equipment were impounded from the Tant property. All of Tant’s pit bulls were later euthanized because they were deemed too violent for adoption.
Sentenced to serve 30 years for setting the lethal booby-trap and 41 dogfighting-related offenses, Tant was on September 17, 2010 released on parole after serving just six years in prison, against McMaster’s strenuous opposition.
Please donate to support our work:
www.animals24-7.org/donate/
The post Dogfighting gang member busted again, another sentenced, 11 nabbed in NC appeared first on Animals 24-7.
