Man covered in blood leads cops to alleged dogfight ring

An alleged participant in a West Kensington dogfighting operation was easy to spot - police say they saw him walking down the street covered with blood.

A preliminary investigation into the source of the blood Monday led officers to an abandoned house near where the suspect, Barry White, 32, lived on Madison Street near Shelbourne, police from the East Detective Division said yesterday.

Inside, investigators said they found a makeshift fighting ring, a set of "poorly constructed cages" and 11 dogs, all in poor health and some injured and bloody.

The scene was indicative of a gambling ring involving dogfights, police from East Detectives said in a statement.

White and Joseph Roberts, 44, of the same address, were charged with animal cruelty and criminal conspiracy, both felonies.

They were arrested after plain- clothes officers observed White walking down Madison Street in bloody clothing.

The seized dogs were taken to the Philadelphia Animal Care and Control Association, where chief executive officer Tara Derby-Perrin said yesterday that they had been transferred to the Pennsylvania SPCA. The animals need to be held for prosecution of the defendants, and keeping them at PACCA could mean euthanizing other healthy dogs to make room, she said.

A spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania SPCA could not be reached late yesterday to learn the condition of the animals.

Detective Gil Ortiz said that at least two of the dogs had "bleeding, open wounds and were very withdrawn, hiding in the cages."

Ortiz said several of the dogs were "definitely fighting dogs." Others were under a year old, and several of them were "really tore up" and may have been used to train the others, he said.

All but one appeared to be pit bulls and the other a pit-bull mix, Ortiz said.

Police suspect the men charged as little as $5 to watch dogfights.

Ortiz said officers seized $3,600 in cash, most of it in small denominations.

Besides cages and the fight ring,investigators also seized a number of items apparently used to "train" or otherwise agitate dogs, the police statement said.

A vehicle used as a dog pen and another containing other evidence also were seized.

Ortiz said dogfighting appears to have slowed. "We don't see it as often as we used to," he said. *