Dogfighting pit, 2 dead pit bulls found

updated 1:13 p.m. ET March 6, 2008

YONKERS, N.Y. - Police found the bodies of two pit bulls in trash bags behind a college and also rescued 15 caged dogs, some scarred and emaciated, at a house with a dogfighting pit in the basement.

Police Commissioner Edward Hartnett said there was some evidence the two discoveries were connected to each other and to two other pit bulls, crippled from dogfights, found in January in a trash bin at a gas station. One of those dogs died.

"It's something going on all over the country," the commissioner said of dogfighting. "There are certain people in our society who find this type of activity entertaining."

The scarred, dead dogs found Wednesday were in black garbage bags behind the College of Mount St. Vincent, just over the Bronx line from Yonkers.

The discovery of the 15 pit bulls in Yonkers came during a Tuesday night raid by narcotics police, Hartnett said. Besides cocaine, drug packaging and nearly $16,000 in cash, the police found a 3-foot-high Plexiglas fighting enclosure, treadmills for dogs, weighted neck chains for training, a whip and syringes used for medicating the animals, officials said.

The garage was filthy with excrement and no food or water was available to the 15 caged dogs and some were scarred and emaciated, said Ken Ross, of the Westchester County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which was called in on the case.

"The condition of the dogs, the conditions they were living in, it was cruel," Ross said. Hartnett said there was "a significant amount of blood" on the treadmills.

Two men were arrested on drug possession charges, Hartnett said.

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