{"id":351390,"date":"2026-09-20T00:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T00:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/351390\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T00:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T00:00:09","slug":"hundreds-of-dead-chickens-found-abandoned-in-nyc-u-hauls-cops-and-activists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/351390\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds of dead chickens found abandoned in NYC U-Hauls: cops and activists"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hundreds of abandoned chickens in Brooklyn were headed for an \u201cexcruciatingly cruel\u201d death believed to be tied to an Orthodox Jewish holiday ritual<\/a> when they were found by animal rights activists, cops and advocates said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The first group of 200 birds \u2013 just 80 of them were still alive \u2013 were discovered in crates Friday in an abandoned U-Haul on Winthrop Avenue between East 45th Street and Troy Avenue around 5 p.m. <\/p>\n

Soon after, more chickens were found in a second unattended U-Haul about a mile and a half away at 910 St. Johns Place, activists and cops said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis bothers me because it\u2019s so excruciatingly cruel and I cannot believe it\u2019s still being done in this day and age,\u201d said Rina Deych, founder of the Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos. <\/p>\n

Dead chickens were found Friday night in a U-Haul truck parked on Winthrop Avenue and Troy Avenue in Brooklyn. Brigitte Stelzer<\/p>\n

\u201cThese chickens are squashed into crates, 10 to 18 in a crate and stacked 10 to 12 crates high. They\u2019re left there for days and many of them die.\u201d<\/p>\n

Police said they are investigating the gruesome findings.<\/p>\n

Only a small number of Orthodox Jews perform Kaporos, the pre-Yom Kippur ritual that entails a person waving the chicken \u2013 usually a chick \u2013 above their head by the wings, Deych, who is Jewish, said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c\u201cThe slaughterer then turns the chicken upside down and slices its throat. These are baby chickens.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were about 200 chickens and only about 80 of them were alive, activists said. Brigitte Stelzer<\/p>\n

Jews who participate in the ritual believe it symbolically transfers their sins to the chicken<\/a>, according to Deych, who has been fighting to stop the practice for years.<\/p>\n

John Di Leonardo, president of the Humane Long Island Anthrozoologist & Wildlife Rehabilitator, claimed the ritual wasn\u2019t even religious.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople know about Santeria, they know about Voodoo, but they don\u2019t know about this much larger sacrifice happening in their backyard,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Martha Romero, left, and her husband Jay Taylor with the Kaporos Compassion Project were trying to save the chickens. Brigitte Stelzer<\/p>\n

Neighbors were disgusted and saddened by the news.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe smell is so bad that I can\u2019t even open my windows,\u201d admitted Pamela Richards, 62, who lives near St. John\u2019s Place. <\/p>\n

\u201cI looked out my window and there was a chicken walking on top of the truck this morning. Some of the chickens are alive and some are dead. I don\u2019t know what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neighbor Eddie Rosenberg called it \u201chorrific.\u201d<\/p>\n

More chickens were found about a mile and a half away in another U-Haul truck parked on St. John\u2019s Place. Brigitte Stelzer<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not a way to treat any living organism, it\u2019s horrific,\u201d he said. \u201cI know that this is for a religious ceremony, but this is animal cruelty. The truck was covered by a tarp earlier, they were trying to hide their crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robert Lapointe, who lives in a house right behind where the U-Haul was parked, was shocked to learn of the cops\u2019 gruesome discovery.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never seen a truck full of dead chickens before,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve lived in Brooklyn for 35 years.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hundreds of abandoned chickens in Brooklyn were headed for an \u201cexcruciatingly cruel\u201d death believed to be tied to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[29403,57,9,56,63,65,64,7714,58],"class_list":["post-351390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-chicken","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-orthodox-judaism","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}