Kensington Man Faces Dogfighting Charges
By Julie Shaw, Philadelphia Daily News
Oct. 27–Police went to a Kensington home in June looking for a man wanted in an attempted-murder case. They didn’t find him, but discovered 22 pit bulls in the basement.
They called the SPCA.
Yesterday, SPCA Police Officer Leonard Knox testified in court that when he investigated that June 7 morning, he found emaciated pit bulls, some with open wounds and some with old wounds, kept in filthy kennels that smelled of “strong ammonia” from the urine inside.
He also found a small scale used to weigh dogs and medications “used for healing wounds and sores.” Further, he saw, hanging on a wall, leashes, collars and a break stick — typically used to release a dog’s biting grip on another dog.
Knox, who has investigated 500 or more animal-fighting cases, said that he determined the pit bulls were being bred “for fighting.”
After hearing the testimony, Municipal Court Judge Harvey Robbins held Sidney Prosser, 36, of Willard Street near G, for trial on the charge of animal fighting, a third-degree felony. Prosser owns the dogs and lives in the house where they were found.
Prosser was not the man wanted on an attempted-murder charge. Detectives had been looking for his girlfriend’s son, Bryant “Bow Wow” Grinnage, Detective Phil Nordo of the East Detective Division said after Prosser’s preliminary hearing.
Knox also testified yesterday under questioning by prosecutor Derek Riker that when he went to Prosser’s house to investigate that June day, Prosser told him he was a breeder. Prosser showed him breeders certificates, which showed the dogs’ pedigrees.
Defense attorney John Garagozzo argued that other than Knox’s “belief,” there was “nothing else that shows these dogs were raised or bred for fighting.”
Prosser, who is out on bail, told a reporter after the hearing, held in the police building on Whitaker Avenue near Erie: “I don’t breed them for fighting,” but as “a hobby.”
He said the dogs’ wounds came from their getting out of the “crates” on their own and fighting among themselves. When that happens, he needs to break them apart, he said.
Coincidentally, half a block from Prosser’s house, also on Willard Street, authorities in February discovered evidence of a bloody dogfighting ring in an abandoned house.
Barry White, 33, pleaded guilty Oct. 16 in Common Pleas Court to animal-cruelty charges in relation to that dogfighting ring and 12 pit bulls found in his Madison Street house, which is right behind the abandoned property on Willard Street. White’s stepfather, Joseph Roberts, 45, still faces a trial in that case.
Nordo, of East Detectives, said yesterday “there is no link” to the pit bulls found in Prosser’s home and the dogfighting ring in White’s case.
And what about Grinnage, 20, accused of attempted murder in connection with a shooting of an elderly man in Kensington in early June?
Nordo happened to be walking through the City Hall courtyard in Center City in July. Who did he see? Grinnage. He followed Grinnage until police backup arrived. Then the cops nabbed him.
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