(WSVN) - A Florida man spoke out after spending one month in jail for killing his neighbor’s rooster.
He said the rooster attacked him and he was wrongly imprisoned, but his former friend said that is not the case.
James Nix Jr. was arrested for animal cruelty after he was attacked by poultry.
“I didn’t know to give it a 21 gun salute!” said Nix. “CPR? Mouth-to-mouth? Do you know? Or call the chicken ambulance?”
Big Roo was Jason DeFelice’s pet rooster, that is until Nix hit it with a stick.
“So I’m defending myself!” said Nix. “You know, I was fearing for my safety and the chicken died.”
Nix also mentioned the rooster attacked people.
“I have not heard that,” said DeFelice. “Because I know the neighbor here, I know him, like we were friends. He never said anything to me about it.”
Nix remembered a time when he mentioned to his neighbor that it attacked his father.
“I did tell him after the chicken hit my dad, I said ‘Hey man, the chicken attacked my dad,'” said Nix. “[ He said] ‘Oh well, it’s just a chicken. What’s he gonna do?’ You know? Well OK, look.”
Nix said the rooster followed and attacked him.
“Its neck flares up and he’s doing his thing and he’s trying to jump up at me,” Nix recalled the incident.
When he tried to simply hit the chicken away, Nix said he accidentally knocked it on the head.
“You know, call it a lucky shot whatever,” he said.
When DeFelice came home, he saw his rooster, dead in a ditch.
That was when he called the local authorities.
“I called JSO, [they] didn’t do nothing and a couple of days later I realized I could call animal control,” said DeFelice.
In late June, Nix went to jail for animal cruelty.
“Next thing you know, he calls the chicken police on me,” said Nix. “Chickens die every day — people at Churches, Popeyes, Kentucky Fried Chicken. Really?”
While the neighbors continue the fight, Nix said he never should have been arrested in the first place.
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