A Philippine police chief was killed during a raid on an illegal cockfight earlier this week after he was slashed by the razor-sharp metal blade attached to a rooster’s leg.
Lieutenant Christian Bolok, the chief of the San Jose police department in central Northern Samar province, was trying to grab a rooster when the blade, known as a gaff, cut a gaping hole in his leg and sliced his femoral artery, causing him to bleed to death.
Three people were arrested in Monday’s raid and several cockfighting roosters were confiscated.
Cockfighting is a popular pastime in many rural areas in the Philippines, where gamblers bet on which rooster would survive the bloody fight. However, cockfighting and other sporting and cultural events have been banned in the archipelago to blunt coronavirus spread, which has led to over 375,000 infections, including at least 7,114 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
