Joliet Cruelty To Animals Defendant Loses SAFE-T-Act Detention Hearing, Prosecutors Reveal Bloody Details

JOLIET, IL — A 39-year-old Joliet man who was arrested last weekend by the Joliet Police Department following an incident involving a bloody and badly beaten rooster at the Gonzalez Fresh Produce grocery store on Collins Street will find himself remaining in the Will County Jail for an indefinite period of time.

This week, Will County Judge Chrystel Gavlin returned to the bench of Courtroom 202, and she agreed with the Will County State's Attorney's Office petition to deny pretrial release for Francisco Arreola. State's Attorney Jim Glasgow has charged Arreola with aggravated cruelty, cruelty to animals, animals in entertainment and obstructing identification.

The complaint indicates that on March 7, Arreola struck the rooster about its head and body. The animals in entertainment charge indicates Arreola owned a rooster, which he knew or should have known "was intended for any show, exhibition, program or other activity featuring ... a fight between such animal and any other animal or human for the purposes of sport, wagering or entertainment."

As for the prosecution's successful petition to deny pretrial release, at 3:46 p.m. March 7, Joliet police officer Knabel was called to the Gonzalez Fresh Produce grocery store at 652 Collins St. for a person hitting a rooster outside the store. The officer spotted Arreola with the rooster in his hands, and he had placed the rooster on his back and shoulder area. The rooster was on a leash tied to its leg, and its head was actively bleeding and cut, prosecutors noted. The feathers on the rooster also had blood.

As for Arreola, "the defendant had a strong odor of alcoholic beverage ... and he appeared to be very intoxicated," prosecutors informed Judge Gavlin. "Officer Knabel took the leash with the rooster away from the defendant."

Officer Bravo was called to the scene to handle the Spanish translations since the defendant spoke Spanish.

"The defendant told him that the rooster was his companion animal and that t]he was training it to defend himself," court files show. "He stated that he was prepping the rooster to fight but then recanted this stating the officer misunderstood him. The defendant had what happened to be blood on his hands, face and neck."

According to court files, Joliet police also interviewed a man who saw Arreola place the rooster into a grocery shopping cart in the parking lot of Gonzalez Fresh Produce, "but the rooster was not standing up in the cart so the defendant so the defendant picked it up from its legs and stuck/hit it in the body and head."

Joliet police took photos of the rooster's injuries, and the rooster's comb, the red top part of the head, and its wattle, the red part under the chin, were both missing, prosecutors noted.

An officer at Joliet Animal Control was called to Collins Street to take the injured rooster into the agency's possession.

"There was visible fresh blood on the white feathered parts of the rooster's hackles area," prosecutors pointed out.

As for Arreola, Joliet police took him into custody, and during booking, he gave the officers a fake name of Jose Ramirez with a date of birth as September 1, 1987, prosecutors revealed.

During the fingerprinting process, Joliet police discovered his real name was Francisco Arreola and he had two outstanding active warrants from Kane County for threatening a public official and criminal trespass. For both of those cases from last year, Arreola failed to show in court, prosecutors noted.

"The defendant made the statements that he obtained the rooster about a week ago from a friend and that the top red part of the rooster was on it when he first obtained it, and he is unsure how it lost it," prosecutors stated. "During booking, the defendant asked Officer (Lauren) Reposa for forgiveness in Spanish several times."

As a result of Judge Gavlin's ruling, Arreola will stay in the Will County jail indefinitely under the SAFE-T-Act. Whether he's jailed for months or years depends on how fast or how slow the pretrial process takes for Arreola's animal cruelty charges to go to trial at the Will County Courthouse.