Jewellery's web blog

Investigators said Friday that they’d busted a criminal ring that was running a cockfighting, methamphetamine and marijuana operation at a home near Kapowsin in southeastern Pierce County.

Sheriff’s detectives found an active meth lab and hundreds of marijuana plants on a 4-acre property tucked off Meridian Avenue East, spokesman Ed Troyer said. They also seized stolen property, found two assault rifles and confiscated at least 51 fighting roosters, Troyer said.

Investigators arrested a 38-year-old man after the morning raid in the 32400 block of Meridian Avenue East. He was booked into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of drug charges, possession of stolen property, animal fighting and professional gambling.

Sheriff Paul Pastor said the operation was an example of how animal abuse and other crimes are linked.

“We found weapons, drugs, stolen cars and cockfighting all in one place,” he said. “We will continue to move against locations like these whenever we find them.”

Detectives were looking for at least one other person and say more arrests tiffany could be made.

“We believe they were manufacturing and selling marijuana and meth and fighting animals,” Troyer said. “Right now, we know who the organizers are. There could be other people that we may go after that were out there gambling, too.”

Officers from the Sheriff’s Department, Seattle police, the state Gambling Commission and the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department spent several hours on the property, documenting evidence, dismantling the drug-making operations and rounding up and removing the roosters. Animal control officers from Tacoma and Lakewood also helped out.

The raid began as a search for illegal weapons, Troyer said.

“It snowballed into this,” he said.

Sheriff’s SWAT and meth lab teams serving a search warrant at the silver bangles property found roosters and chickens, some in cages and others tied to posts. Investigators also found a fire pit and the ring where they believe the cockfights took place.

Illegal cockfighting might have been taking place at the property for some time, according to court documents.

A woman granted a domestic-violence protection order against the man arrested Friday wrote in a sworn affidavit filed in December that he “was planning cockfights in the house” at that time.

The bust was not related to another cockfighting silver rings broken up in the Seattle area this week, Troyer said.

Stacey Mulick: 253-597-8268

stacey.mulick@thenewstribune.com

blog.thenewstribune.com/crime

Staff writer Adam Lynn contributed to silver bracelets this report.

Harking back to an era when Jews ruled the ring, two devoutly observant boxers are fighting to make this the best year for Jewish boxing in seven decades.

Middleweight Yuri Foreman, 29, and welterweight Dmitriy Salita, 27 – both undefeated – are poised to battle for world titles this fall.

As they prepare for their championship bouts, the Brooklyn pair say they feel good buy tiffany about their chances of following in the footsteps of such Jewish ring greats as Benny Leonard and Barney Ross.

“I would not be in this sport if I wasn’t confident,” said Foreman, who will meet World Boxing Association junior middleweight champion Daniel Santos in Las Vegas on Nov. 14. “I am confident that I will be successful, God willing.”

Salita, who is gearing up for his WBA light-welterweight title shot against Britain’s Amir Khan in a bout tentatively set for Dec. 5, adds, “I think it’s incredible that Yuri and I made it to the same level at the same time. Hopefully we’ll both be successful.”

Much of the media attention surrounding Foreman and Salita, who are friends Foreman attended Salita’s recent wedding – has focused on their strict observance of Judaism. The pious pugilists refuse to box on Shabbat, and they keep kosher and study Torah in their free time. Foreman is even training to become a rabbi.

“Many people have a stereotype about boxing that you can’t do anything spiritual,” Foreman said. ” silver rings Judaism in many ways helps me in my boxing. It helps me to stay grounded, not to forget who I am and where I am.”

Salita, who studies at a Chabad yeshiva, says his Judaism helps him become a better person and fulfill life goals.

“God wants us to work hard,” he said.

Both Foreman and Salita were born in the former Soviet Union – Foreman in Gomel, Belarus, and Salita in Odessa, Ukraine. Salita immigrated with his family to Brooklyn in his early teens, while Foreman took a more circuitous route, first immigrating to Israel before moving to New York City’s largest borough in 1999 at age 20 to pursue his career.

Their emergence has sparked the imagination of many Jewish boxing enthusiasts fond of a bygone era silver bracelets when there were more Jewish fighters in proportion to their share of the U.S. population than any ethnic group in the country.

“We had a period that people don’t know or appreciate when we had almost 30 Jewish world champions,” said Mike Silver, the curator of an exhibition on Jewish boxing at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia and author of The Arc of Boxing: The Demise of the Sweet Science.

While Silver says he’s doubtful that the emergence of two Jewish boxers heralds a return to the glory days of Jewish boxing, the 1920s and 1930s, “even one fighter is a nugget of gold.”

The world’s share trading pits may be emptying but the London Stock silver jewelry Exchange plans to revive the glamour of the “opening bell” that marks the start of daily trading to boost its brand amid fierce competition from rivals.

The exchange closed its pits in 1986 and now marks the start of trading by activating balls on a mobile sculpture in the lobby of its headquarters.

But the sculpture – known as “The Source” – is to be dumped in favour of something else that aims to match the branding power of the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange.

John Wallace, LSE spokesman, said: “We are looking at ways to spruce up our ‘market open’ event. We want to give clients who come to the exchange something to remember the occasion by.” He declined to say what was being planned.

With electronic trading a common feature across all trading facilities, silver bangles exchanges need to recreate the rituals associated with a bygone era to help distinguish themselves from upstart rivals.

In the US, BATS Exchange and Direct Edge have helped drive the NYSE’s share of trading in NYSE-listed shares below 30 per cent in recent years.

The NYSE is in the midst of overhauling its trading floor, still home to 1,100 brokers and market-makers.

Daily business television broadcasts from the floor are part of maintaining a distinct image.

Rich Adamonis, a NYSE spokesman, said the exchange started inviting companies doing IPOs to silver rings the opening bell in the 1990s, when business television started taking off. “It’s part of the brand and what people expect to see.”

Nasdaq has a daily opening bell ceremony in a special studio for the purpose.