Titus County, TX sheriffs didn’t raid Facebook friends’ alleged cockfight

Alleged cockfight host has gamecock as his profile picture

MOUNT PLEASANT, Texas––Alleged collusion between cockfighters and law enforcement rarely looks more brazen than on March 15,  2025,  80 miles east of Dallas.

“Local Law Enforcement Allows Massive Assembly of Cockfighters to Escape After Animal Wellness Groups Uncover and Document Fighting Derby in Progress in Titus County Last Saturday,”  bannered Animal Wellness Action and Showing Animals Respect & Kindness at the top of a March 19,  2025 joint media release.

Animal Wellness Action and Showing Animals Respect & Kindness [SHARK] “expressed grave disappointment that the Titus County Sheriffs’ Office failed to request a search warrant to enter a cockfighting complex in Titus County, Texas,  after the two non-profit organizations documented the presence of the animal fighting venture there” on March 15,  2025.

Tim Thompson

“On that date,”  the media release explained,  “sheriffs’ deputies did respond in force when alerted to the illegal animal fighting derby at the home of Tim Thompson,”  long a notorious cockfighting advocate,  “but the cockfighters locked the gate upon the arrival of the police,  requiring the law enforcement officers to obtain a warrant to enter,  gather evidence, and make arrests.

“A senior law enforcement officer, who was not at the crime scene,”  specifically Sheriff’s Lieutenant Craig Brown,  “appears to have unilaterally determined there was not probable cause of a crime in progress,”  the Animal Wellness Action and Showing Animals Respect & Kindness media release said.

“It turns out that the officer is a Facebook friend of the property owner,”  Tim Thompson,  “who maintains two massive gamecock farms and a fighting pit at the property.”

Tim Thompson,  Sheriff Chris Bragg,  & Lieutenant Craig Brown

Beth Clifton of ANIMALS 24-7,  a former Miami Beach police officer,  turned up the evidence of the Facebook friendship between Thompson and Brown within 30 seconds of hearing both names for the first time,  and found quite a lot more within a matter of minutes.

Craig Brown,  hired by the Titus County sheriff’s department in March 2009,  was promoted to sergeant in 2013 by former Titus County sheriff Tim Ingram,  and was promoted again by current Titus County sheriff Chris Bragg to head the sheriff’s department detective bureau in January 2025.

Bragg also,  incidentally,  is Facebook friends with Tim Thompson.

One might reasonably expect the head of a law enforcement detective bureau to detect at least as much about the illegal cockfighting activities of a purported friend over several years,  especially while living and working in the same county,  as Beth Clifton discovered almost immediately,  especially when that purported friend,  Tim Thompson,  has a gamecock as his profile picture,  appearing on every one of his posts.

Praises involvement of juvenile in raising gamefowl

Many of Tim Thompson’s Facebook posts,  moreover,  allude to cockfighting and raising gamefowl.  Cockfighting has been illegal in Texas since 1907,  and has been a felony since 2011,  along with raising fighting gamecocks.  Attending cockfights or possessing cockfighting paraphernalia are misdemeanors.

Among the multitude of Tim Thompson posts associating himself with cockfighting,  Thompson posted a photograph of a boy apparently in his early teens,  among chickens with rooster hutches in the background.

“So glad to see Chan in chicken yard,”  Tim Thompson captioned the photo.  “If more young kids loved gamefowl this world would be so much better off…Raising chickens keeps this boy out of a lot of trouble,”  at least so long as the local sheriffs fail to enforce the law.

Note:  gamecocks are tethered to rooster hutches,  one to a hutch,  to keep them from fighting before they are thrown into a pit to fight.

Campaigned for former sheriff

On October 15,  2015,  Tim Thompson posted a photo captioned,  “We’re looking for someone to paint a gamecock on the end of these carry boxes.”

A “carry box” is used to transport roosters to cockfights.

During the years 2016-2017,  Tim Thompson posted at least four memes from an entity calling itself “Cockers against the HSUS and PETA.”

Tim Thompson in January 2016 posted “Re-elect sheriff Tim Ingram,”  who was the Titus County sheriff before Chris Bragg.

There appears to be no record of Ingram ever busting a cockfight,  but there is record of one of his jail staff being arrested in June 2021 for allegedly stealing from an inmate,  and of Titus County flunking a July 2021 inspection by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards,  on multiple criteria.

“Something smells rotten”

“Something smells rotten in Titus County,  and it is not the decaying bodies of birds slashed and stabbed to death at the cockfighting pit there,”  Showing Animals Respect & Kindness founder Steve Hindi told media,  having spent a frustrating day on March 15,  2025 documenting the biggest cockfight he had ever seen in decades of exposing cockfights,  while the Titus County sheriff’s department allegedly did not even attempt to obtain a search-and-seizure warrant.

Texas,  incidentally,  is a “civil forfeiture state,”  meaning that law enforcement agencies may claim and sell any property found to have been used in the commission of a felony by someone convicted of the felony.

By actual count of Hindi and Animal Wellness Action representative Kevin Chambers,  who was also on the scene,  225 vehicles were parked around the metal-clad shed housing the alleged cockfight.  Among them were about two dozen trailers and even more new pickup trucks brought to the scene––as Showing Animals Respect & Kindness drone video shows––by alleged cockfighters with their gamefowl.

Bucks deluxe left unseized

The forfeiture value at auction of the vehicles videotaped bringing gamefowl to the scene would easily have been in excess of half a million dollars,  perhaps more.

That is not even counting the potential forfeiture value of gambling money,  admission fees,  firearms,  and illegal contraband such as drugs and cockfighting gaffs that might have been found at the scene,  had the Titus County sheriff’s office obtained a search-and-seizure warrant.

Narrated Animal Wellness Action president Wayne Pacelle,  “SHARK obtained a schedule of fighting events to occur at the private property near Mount Pleasant,”  the Titus County seat.

“Animal Wellness Action and SHARK investigators, acting on that tip,  investigated the site and uncovered a major cockfighting complex, with a fighting pit,  two gamecock farms,  and dozens of cock houses,  which temporarily house fighting birds.”

“Put the community at risk”

“Sheriffs’ deputies were ready to take action,”  said Hindi,  naming Titus County sheriff’s deputy Randy Underwood,  “but a senior official stymied their efforts and put the community at risk by not seeking a warrant to arrest the perpetrators of these animal cruelty crimes.”

Responding to calls from Hindi and Chambers,  “four marked vehicles from the Titus County Sheriffs’ Office responded,”  Hindi said,  “and our team showed them the aerial footage of the cockfighters’ setup. But that’s when someone in the sheriffs’ office chose not to turn the team loose to make arrests.”

Emphasized Chambers,  “There is no doubt that a cockfight was in progress on March 15,  2025,  and it is a dereliction of duty for law enforcement not to raid such an enterprise.  Law enforcement had everything set up for them to conduct one of the biggest cockfighting arrest actions in decades.  That effort was squandered by a road-blocking action by a senior law enforcement officer.”

Texas Department of Public Safety

Resumed Pacelle,  “Cockfighting is barbaric,  and it is always bound up with other crimes.”

Even as Pacelle spoke,  Agence France Presse reported from Indonesia that two soldiers were arrested on March 18,  2024,  for allegedly shooting three police officers dead when the officers,  with 14 others,  raided an illegal cockfight at Karang Manik,  Negara Batin district,  Lampung province.

“Letting the cockfighters jump in their vehicles and take off,”  Pacelle said,  “was an incredible lost opportunity to nab more than 200 people who had assembled for a singular criminal purpose: to participate in a massive animal fighting derby,  forbidden under both Texas and United States law.

“We hope that the Texas Department of Public Safety opens an investigation and that they charge the property owner.  While they are at it,”  Pacelle said,  “they should investigate any links between the senior law enforcement official who declined to seek a warrant and the owner of the property where the fight was conducted.”

And,  while at it,  the Texas Department of Public Safety might also investigate that senior law enforcement official’s boss,  Sheriff Chris Bratt.

“Cockfighters scattered”

Even before the alleged cockfight started,  Pacelle said,  “Animal Wellness Action and SHARK provided law enforcement with the fight schedule,  still pictures and video of the gamecock farms with hundreds of tethered birds,  cock houses full of birds delivered for the Saturday morning fights,  and the structure at the center of it all that was the cockfighting pit.

“Once law enforcement showed up,  cockfighters scattered — also a tell-tale sign of their illegal conduct,”  Pacelle mentioned.

Fumed Hindi,  “Any first-year cop,  presented with the evidence we had,  would know in a split second that there was a cockfight in progress.  We couldn’t have done more to set up a law enforcement action.”

Elsewhere,  “Texas law enforcement have stepped up”

Elsewhere,  Pacelle noted,  “Texas law enforcement have stepped up their game in addressing illegal fights.”

Pacelle mentioned busts “in Galveston,  where nearly 100 birds were seized;  in Potter County,  where more than 160 roosters were seized and,  according to the sheriff,  ‘many’ participants were ‘unlawfully in the United States’;  in San Jacinto,  where suspects were ‘expected to face multiple felony charges, including animal cruelty,  cockfighting,  illegal gambling,  unlawful weapon possession,  organized crime,  and firearm possession by illegal immigrants’;  in Cherokee,  where two dozen suspects were arrested on similar charges,  and in Lynn County,  where the sheriff brought felony charges ‘because of organized criminal activity.’

“Earlier this month”  Pacelle said,  “the El Paso County Sheriffs’ Office obtained a warrant and arrested a man for having a collection of cockfighting paraphernalia,  along with 16 roosters trained to fight.

“This was a cockfight on steroids”

“There have been a series of interdictions at the Texas/Mexico border,”  Pacelle continued,  noting that,  “On February 17,  U.S. Customs & Border Patrol officers working at the Paso Del Norte international crossing seized 180 rooster gaffs and 7,500 animal steroid tablets from a traveler arriving from Mexico,”  who forfeited the paraphernalia and was fined $2,000.

“Our team knows exactly what a fighting setup looks like.  And this was one on steroids,” Pacelle charged.

“We are publicly calling out this criminal operation and broadly alerting law enforcement everywhere about the markers and features of animal fights,  so they don’t miss opportunities to apprehend those involved in this kind of lawlessness.

“Texas is an especially important state in our fight to eradicate animal fighting,”  Pacelle emphasized.  “It is the largest border state with Mexico,   with cross-border trafficking of fighting birds to and from Mexico numbering in the hundreds of thousands or even millions every year.”

Grady Judd’s team busts cockfighters

In Florida,  meanwhile,  Polk County sheriff Grady Judd announced that Alex Galarza,  26,  of Frostproof,  and his sister,  Isela Garcia-Galarza,  19,  were on February 25,  2025 arrested on cockfighting-related charges “following an investigation that stemmed from an anonymous tip about a possible unrelated crime.

“While attempting to make contact with residents at a home on McClellan Road in Frostproof,”  Judd said,  “deputies observed multiple roosters in cages, missing their combs and wattles – a common practice in cockfighting to minimize injuries during fights.”

Translation:  unlike their Titus County,  Texas peers,  Polk County sheriff’s deputies follow up on indications of cockfighting.

Galarza was charged with three cockfighting-related felonies.  Garcia-Galarza was charged with interfering with the investigation.

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