Bags of Dead Chickens, Evidence Of Local Cock Fighting

Earlier this morning before 9am, West Hazleton Police responded to the area of Monroe Avenue between Wayne and North Broad Streets after a report from a passerby that there was a bag of dead chickens in the roadway.
 
Sources state that other bags of dead chickens and singular dead chickens have been in parts of Hazle Township including Winters Ave, just a few blocks from where this bag was found.​

The bag found today was reported to be open with bloody chicken carcasses coming out of the bag in the middle of the street.

​West Hazleton Police have unofficially announced that the chicken carcasses are a result of illegal cock fighting. An investigation is ongoing at this time.

Via Wikipedia:
A cockfight is a blood sport between two cocks, or gamecocks, held in a ring called a cockpit. The history of raising fowl for fighting goes back 6,000 years.
Cocks possess congenital aggression toward all males of the same species. Wagers are often made on the outcome of the match.

In the United States, cockfighting is now illegal in all fifty U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The last state to implement a state law banning cockfighting was Louisiana; the Louisiana State Legislature voted to approve a ban in June 2007, which went into effect in August 2008.
As of 2013:

• Cockfighting is a felony in 40 states and the District of Columbia.
• The possession of birds for fighting is prohibited in 39 states and the District of Columbia.
• Being a spectator at a cockfight is prohibited in 43 states and the District of Columbia.
• The possession of cockfighting implements is prohibited in 15 states.

Additionally, the 2014 farm bill, signed into law by President Obama, contained a provision making it a federal crime to attend an animal fighting event or bring a child under the age of 16 to an animal fighting event.