Trending

‘He calls the chicken police on me’: Florida man facing charges after killing neighbor’s pet rooster

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A Florida man was arrested and spent 30 hours in jail after he was accused of murdering his neighbor’s rooster.

>> Read more trending news

James Nix told WJAX that he was out checking his mail when the rooster approached him, and he was forced to kill it in self-defense.

“And I turn around, and there’s a chicken out there in the street. I said, ‘Oh boy, here we go,’” Nix told the station. “Turn around, walk to my place — bang bang bang bang bang — now the chicken’s in my yard! Now its neck flares up.”

Nix said that what happened next was an accident.

“So I pick up a stick in the yard, and I try to hit it,” Nix told WJAX. “But the chicken’s jumping up at me, and I accidentally knocked it in the head, you know? Call it a lucky shot, whatever.”

The rooster’s owner, Jason Defelice, told WJAX that he believes his rooster was intentionally killed, saying, “I lose them to animals, but I was not expecting to lose them to my neighbor that was like my friend.”

“I didn’t know to give it a 21-gun salute!” Nix told WJAX. “CPR, mouth-to-mouth, do you know? Or call the chicken ambulance?”

When Defelice came home, he said he immediately knew something was wrong.

“I didn’t see my rooster at first,” Defelice told WJAX. “So I knew something was up, because he would always come chase me. Then, I went in his yard and yelled at him, and he finally came out and said he killed him.”

Some neighborhood children allegedly told Defelice that Nix had beaten the rooster to death, WJAX reported.

“Next thing you know, he calls the chicken police on me,” Nix told WJAX.

Defelice told the station that he initially called the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, but when they failed to respond he called animal control. Their investigation resulted in Nix’s arrest on animal cruelty charges, WJAX reported.

Nix told WJAX he does not understand why Defelice called the police.

“Chickens die every day, people — at Churches, Popeyes, Kentucky Fried Chicken.”