Investigator: Witnesses can tie Vick to dog fights
FOXSports.com
The lead investigator in the dog-fighting investigation at a home that was owned by Michael Vick says there may be evidence that can directly tie him to fights at the property.
Kathy Strouse, Animal Control coordinator for the City of Chesapeake, says there may be a videotape showing Vick at dogfights and that she has talked with individuals who can "put Vick on the property" during matches in an interview with Yahoo.com.
Vick has said that he rarely visited the house and that relatives living there were responsible for any misdeeds. He put the house up for sale last week and it is currently under contract.
Strouse also said she is "very confident" authorities will link Vick directly to the dog fighting and called out the prosecutor for not being more aggressive. "He was at the home and saw the equipment that we seized. When we were there, he said he had enough right there to issue an indictment."
The Falcons say they can't comment on the specifics of the dog-fighting case until officials in Virginia reach a decision on whether to file charges. The prosecutor handling the case and the sheriff who oversaw the raid have not responded to repeated requests for interviews.
Vick's cousin, who lived at the home, was the target of a drug case that led authorities to search the property. Investigators reported finding dozens of dogs - some of them injured and malnourished - along with items associated with organized fighting, such as treadmills for training, jaw-prying sticks, veterinary drugs commonly used to treat wounds and blood-soaked carpeting.
Not looking to good for Vick :-","xx
Report: Vick was at dog fight in 2000
Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick was at a dog fight in 2000 and is "one of the heavyweights" in the sport, broadcast reports indicate.
An ESPN report Sunday cited a police informant whom a dog-fighting investigator called "extremely reliable."
"That's who bets a large dollar," the informant told the network. "And they have the money to bet large money. As I'm talking about large money, 30 to 40 thousand, even higher. He's one of the heavyweights."
When asked how he knows Vick bets that amount, the informant said, "because I've seen it."
The informant said his dog beat Vick's dog in 2000, the year before Vick was chosen by the Falcons with the first overall pick in the NFL draft.
Investigator David Hunt said information from the informant has "resulted in the arrest of several individuals over the past few years, numerous search warrants, as well as convictions."
Surry County (Va.) Commonwealth attorney Gerald Poindexter said Friday he is confident charges will be brought in the investigation of a possible dog-fighting operation at a house then owned by Vick. Dog fighting is a felony in Virginia.
Police raided the rural home April 25 as part of a drug investigation. They seized 66 dogs, 55 of them pit bulls, and equipment that could be associated with dog fighting.
Vick has said he let a cousin, Davon Boddie, live at the house, and he didn't know a large kennel on the property could be involved in criminal activity.
Vick - Average Player, Below-Average Person
May 31st, 2007
Philadelphia, PA (Sports Network) - Clearly, Roger Goodell doesn't need a criminal conviction to pass judgment on an NFL player. Neither do I.
Michael Vick is a jerk. A big one. A man of limited character and low integrity.
We've given him the benefit of the doubt for too long, tried way too hard to like Vick because of our awe over some of the things he's done on a football field and the fact that we recognize him off of it.
This charade needs to end.
Just because Vick's name is familiar doesn't mean he should get a handful of free passes on his mounting transgressions. Let's face it, he's Pacman Jones. He's Chris Henry. He's his brother Marcus, too.
"Oh," you contest, "But it's because of Vick's high profile that he has had to confront these issues." Cut the crap. It's not a witch hunt. It's just a highly-paid man who has made decisions both immoral and stupid. Q Rating has nothing to do with it.
Peyton Manning never owned a house in which authorities said pit bulls were being bred for fighting, and he was never described by an ESPN Outside the Lines source as a "heavyweight" in the felonious world of dog fighting.
Tom Brady hasn't been accused of giving a woman genital herpes despite previously knowing about his condition, or using the name "Ron Mexico" to conceal his identity when seeking treatment.
Donovan McNabb didn't attempt to carry a water bottle with a mysterious secret compartment through airport security in Miami, a device that authorities claimed contained "a small amount of dark particulate and a pungent aroma closely associated with marijuana."
No, Michael Vick has never been convicted or charged with a crime. But there's enough smoke billowing around the man that he'd better pray for a rainy summer.
In retrospect, the signs that Vick was someone of questionable character have all been present for some time.
Remember how he supported embattled head coach Dan Reeves, the man that first made him a starting quarterback, when Vick's leg injury contributed to Atlanta's dismal 2-10 start back in 2003? You don't remember Vick's support, because he never offered it. Reeves was fired.
Remember how Vick supported Jim Mora, the man who battled for three years to tailor the offense to his quarterback's skills, when Atlanta's 2006 began to take a nosedive? Tough to recall that one too, since Vick never once stood up for the coach that had backed him vehemently for the previous three seasons.
Far be it from Vick to take any responsibility for the struggles of his team. Better to suggest through his silence that the coach wasn't good enough, or that the front office didn't get him enough of a supporting cast. What a leader.
And instead of apologizing to your team's success-starved fans for your shoddy play, or just keeping your emotions to yourself and trying harder next week, better to raise both hands and flip off the people that pay your salary as you're leaving the field. What a pillar of the community.
"Yeah," you exclaim, "But his charity work!"
Stop. Vick signed a $130 million contract that included a $37 million signing bonus back in December of 2004, so forgive me if I don't gush over the $10,000 he gave the families of the victims of the Virginia Tech tragedy back in April.
And don't tell me about his work with the Boys and Girls Club in Atlanta, and how much money he raises for school programs and disadvantaged youth. If he really cared about those causes, and wasn't just throwing a couple of spare wads of cash in their direction, maybe he would have showed up for a scheduled April appearance on Capitol Hill in which he was supposed to appeal for increased funding for after-school programs.
I don't think Michael Vick should be locked up, and I don't necessarily think he should be suspended from the NFL, depending on his level of culpability in the dog fighting case. The type of justice that Vick is due is beyond the jurisdiction of Roger Goodell and his cohorts on Park Avenue, and I also believe it's beyond the reach of the U.S. legal justice system.
Rather, Vick's actions warrant his dismissal from the hearts and minds of NFL fans everywhere, to be toppled from his perch as one of the league's elite players, not that his passing exploits of the last three seasons really match up to that status anyway. What Vick deserves is to become Albert Belle, a player that no one would dare to love but is too much of a national joke to necessarily despise.
Those number seven jerseys that were previously among the NFL's hottest items should find a comfortable place on the discount racks. Those Madison Avenue puppet-masters that previously sidled up to Vick for endorsements should suddenly lose his number.
From now on, we need to think of Michael Vick as just another quarterback, just another guy.
And a pretty poor excuse for a guy at that.