A police chief died after he accidentally wounded himself with a rooster's metal blade while trying to arrest suspects engaged in cockfighting in a northern province of the Philippines this week.
Lt. Christian Bolo, 38, died while being taken to the capital city's provincial hospital, doctors said.
Cockfighting is a popular spectator sport in the Philippines. Crowds gamble large amounts of money on the outcome of a fight between two birds with blades on their legs.
The fights - called "tupada" or "sabong" - usually take just a minute. The cocks die instantly just by being grazed by the tip of the blade on any part of their body. That proves how lethal these blades - called "tari" by Filipinos - are.
The blade went deep into the lieutenant's femoral artery.
In an interview with news agency Agence France-Presse, provincial police chief Col. Arnel Apud said what happened was unfortunate and "a piece of bad luck that I cannot explain...This is the first time in my 25 years as a police officer that I lost a man due to a fighting cock's spur."
Three people were arrested and seven fighting cocks, two sets of metal blades and 550 Philippine pesos ($11) in cash were confiscated, the Philippine News Agency reported. Three other suspects remain at large.
The arrested will be charged under the Cockfighting Law of 1974. They are currently detained at the San Jose Detention facility.
The Philippine government banned cockfighting along with other sporting and cultural events during the coronavirus pandemic to prevent people from gathering.
Cockfighting is not just legal in the Philippines - it is also a national obsession. In fact, it is considered as the second most popular sport in the country - next to basketball.
Cockfighting tournaments take place in around 2,500 dedicated arenas across the archipelago where an estimated 30 million roosters kill each other every year.
Animal rights groups in the Philippines have denounced cockfighting but their crusade to abolish the popular blood sport has fallen on deaf ears.
