Sheryle Nash said she never knew her family lived near a basement stained with dog blood.
“The neighborhood is already messed up,” Nash said. “I didn’t know people ever [held dogfights] around here.”
Police and Pennsylvania SPCA officers arrested two people Wednesday evening from a house on the 400 block of East Cheltenham Avenue. Animal protection officers seized eight dogs and equipment they said were used for fighting and training, including a treadmill.
Police Sgt. Jim Connell accompanied SPCA officers during the raid. Connell said the basement walls and floor were covered with dried dog blood.
“You could just smell [the blood],” Connell said. “It was terrible.”
Crime is bad in her neighborhood, Nash complained, “unless they start releasing the dogs on us.”
John Perillo said the dog-fighting arrests also surprised him. Perillo is a 16-year-resident of Lawndale who attends every Lawncrest civic meeting.
“Nobody suspected the barks of anything because people just thought it was a guy with eight dogs,” Perillo said.
SPCA officers and police arrested 17 people in dog-fighting raids last week. The SPCA raided the Lawncrest house with a search warrant after they busted a dog-fighting ring in South Philadelphia and Kensington.
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