08:07 PM CDT on Friday, June 23, 2006

By BRAD WATSON / WFAA-TV

WFAA

The violence is vicious and set to rap music

The video is brutal - pit bulls fighting each other.

It's on DVD and was released by a North Texas-based distributor.

The Humane Society of the United States is now calling on federal authorities to do something about it.

The violence is vicious and set to rap music - pit bulls mauling each other on a video called "Hood Fights, Volume 2, Art of the Pit."

The Humane Society believes the video isn't just brutal and cruel but illegal.

"It is heartbreaking any time you see it and it's frustrating to know that these people are doing it and they're profiting from selling this and showing it," says the Society's Tammy Hawley.

Federal law prohibits anyone from profiting in interstate commerce by depicting animal cruelty.

The Humane Society is asking the U.S. Attorney in North Texas to investigate Trophy Club-based 50/50 Entertainment.

The firm owns website Street Heat that released the video and still sells it.

But retailers Circuit City, Best Buy and others dropped it from their websites this week, after questions by the Associated Press.

The video angers pit bull owner Mark Karpinski of Richland Hills.

He says pit bulls are good natured dogs. He said it is irresponsible owners that make them bad.

"It's not that they're doing the damage themselves, that's how they were trained. They were trained to do the damage. My dog has been trained to be a member of the family," he said.

A man answering 50/50 Entertainment's phone declined to comment.

Karpinski hopes federal authorities start investigating and that all websites drop the video.

"To see someone who trains an animal to just fight and kill and destroy makes me sick," she said.

E-mail bwatson@wfaa.com.