(Memphis) Dog fighting in North Memphis has landed a man in jail.
Police say Joshua Whitefield had four starving dogs in his backyard and one of them had fresh wounds from a fight.
The dog had wounds so bad that Animal Services had to take the dog to an emergency after-hours animal clinic.
While Joshua Whitfield is in jail is backyard is now empty but people are still home.
They didn’t want to talk to us about the pit bulls found in their backyard.
Animal Services says it rescued a starving puppy with no shelter, food or water and another bleeding dog with gaping wounds on its face, neck, legs and chest.
“I don’t like it. I don`t like it at all,” said Next Door Neighbor Shavon Stevens.
Stevens says she has heard the growling and barking and, in fact, she’s seen worse.
“I have seen a dead one over there,” said Stevens. “I guess they fought the dogs and one died. One killed the other one.”
She called it animal cruelty but as we tried to talk to her, another neighbor started yelling, cutting off our interview, demanding she not speak with us. We asked him ‘why’?
“Why don`t you want us to talk about it?” asked Reporter Sabrina Hall.
“Because it’s not our business,” he said.
“It’s not our business that people are fighting dogs?” asked Hall.
(He responds but what he said was not clear.)
“So that’s your property, sir?” asked Hall.
“That`s right,” he said.
He claims he owns the house where the dog fighting is going on.
Stevens says he doesn’t want us to report on it out of fear of the family who lives there.
It’s something she says won’t stop her from speaking.
“I am willing to because I want it to be stopped,” she said.
The City says the dogs are currently being held in the ‘stray area’ at Memphis Animal Services waiting for a vet to check them out.
In the meantime, Whitfield has been charged with two counts of cruelty to animals.
