Sam Thapomasee
A 52-year old Fort Smith man was arrested on Thursday and faces felony Unlawful Animal Fighting charges after an investigation led to a search and seizure warrant executed at his residence at 3820 Rowe Avenue.
A 2014 Facebook profile picture shows Thapornpasee holding what appears to be a fighting Gamecock.
According to the arrest reports from the Fort Smith Police Department, Sam Thapornpasee, had roosters, gamecock fighting paraphernalia supplies as well as medical supplies that he admited were used for treating the birds “when they were hurt”.
Thapornpasee told animal control officers Joshua McCleod and Jade Stanley he trained the roosters to fight and would sell them “two or three at a time” to cockfighters in the state off Texas for cash. Thapornpasee told the officers he would generally realize “$200 to $300” for every trained and fight ready bird he would deliver to the parties in Texas.
Nineteen roosters, a fighting ring and a decoy fighting roosters and medicines ranging from B-12 to peroxide and aspirins. Thapornpasee told officers that some of the medicines were used to treat birds injured in training while the B-12 was utilized to “make the roosters bigger”.
All of the roosters were “wounded” according to Officer Stanley’s narrative including in the arrest report. Thapornpasee also detailed some of the training methods he used in preparing he roosters for sale.
All nineteen of the roosters were taken to the Sebastian County Humane Society and the decoy training rooster was logged into evidence after the arrest.
Dennis W. McCaslin
Dennis McCaslin has been a longtime news and sports reporter for several media outlets in the Fort Smith area. He has also been a well known radio personality and play-by-play announcer for several years prior to joining InsideFortSmith.Com. He is the voice of the ArklahomaSports High School Game of the Week. E-mail: dennis@greatplainsdigital.com
