Oklahoma Cockfighting Ban

By John Burnett

Published November 18, 2002 at 11:00 PM CST

NPR's John Burnett reports that although Oklahomans voted this month to outlaw cockfighting in their state, some lawmen are refusing to enforce the new ban. The practice of setting fighting chickens against each other and betting on the bloody outcome is lucrative, and in several counties there are legal challenges to the ban.

John Burnett

As NPR's Southwest correspondent based in Austin, Texas, John Burnett covers immigration, border affairs, Texas news and other national assignments. In 2018, 2019 and again in 2020, he won national Edward R. Murrow Awards from the Radio-Television News Directors Association for continuing coverage of the immigration beat. In 2020, Burnett along with other NPR journalists, were finalists for a duPont-Columbia Award for their coverage of the Trump Administration's Remain in Mexico program. In December 2018, Burnett was invited to participate in a workshop on Refugees, Immigration and Border Security in Western Europe, sponsored by the RIAS Berlin Commission.

See stories by John Burnett