By Tim Binnall
In a strange story out of Illinois, a man was arrested for allegedly abusing his pet rooster in what he later claimed was an attempt to train the bird to fight. The bizarre bust reportedly occurred this past Friday afternoon when police in the city of Joliet were alerted to a ruckus unfolding outside of a grocery store. When cops arrived on the scene, they immediately encountered a man "holding a tan, black, and white rooster that was attached to a rope leash tied to its leg."
Beyond his peculiar possession of the bird, police were immediately suspicious of the stranger as he "appeared to be intoxicated" and provided cops with "fictitious identifying information." Additionally, officers were understandably concerned that the rooster sported "visible cuts and bleeding to the top of its head." The odd scene got even weirder when they questioned the man, later identified as Francisco Arreola, and he offered curiously conflicting explanations for how the animal sustained the injuries.
Police say that he initially informed them that "the rooster was his pet and that he was training it to fight." However, perhaps sensing that he may have admitted to something illegal, Arreola 'clarified' that he was actually teaching the bird "to defend itself." Be that as it may, he was promptly arrested for animal cruelty and, in a bit of karmic justice, it was discovered that he had "two active arrest warrants" in a neighboring county.