Yippeekiyea.....NOT!

[shooter1201]

Around 2200HRS last night, as I was patrolling a warehouse district, I spotted a single, obviously lost, COW walking down the middle of the road. I radioed dispatch, having NO IDEA of the what was about to unfold....

This would have been funny, if not for the nearby bypass, where cars regularly travel in excess of 75mph. Guess WHERE this cow was headed...? YEP!

Dispatch advised me that they had received a call from a guy stating he had a trailer, and if I could keep the cow in sight, he'd be there in 5 minutes to load it up. Riiiiight....

3 HOURS later, myself, another city officer, my shift supervisor, a state patrol officer, the guy with the trailer....and a veternarian are 'pursuing' this cow through a residential neighborhood.

It had successfully negotiated crossing the bypass(it couldn't have picked a better time, since there was little traffic at that hour), and had headed up the main drag into town, narrowly missing being struck by several vehicles. We were now over a mile from where I had originally spotted it.

After 3 hours of chasing this beast from one block to the next, having it double back on us several times, I asked my SGT if it wasn't time for a '.75 pursuit termination'. He was almost ready to agree with me, but opted to give the vet 'one last chance.'

I wasn't raised on a farm/ranch, but I am familiar with the way MOST cows act around humans. This cow didn't act 'normal', in that it didn't respond to feed, truck horns, herding, etc....like other cows I've dealt with. My 'guess' is that it was the 'product' of a commercial operation and had managed to 'escape' from a cattle truck. There were NO farms, ranches, etc in the area I originally spotted this cow.

ANYway.....after 3+ hours of 'giving chase', we finally 'corralled' it in a blackberry lot and got it lassoed. It took 8 of us and a cattle prod to 'coax' this cow into the trailer.

After securing the trailer gate, my SGT radioed dispatch:

'204'

'Go ahead, 204'

'10-15 x 1 cow...advised the jail to have someone meet us at the kitchen door...'

You've gotta love small towns......

[ 09-15-2002, 11:44 PM: Message edited by: shooter1201 ]

[shooter1201]

I talked to the Chief about this incident this morning. He was in agreement with me, in tying up all the available city officers for 4 hours on this cow was unnecessary and the 'problem' should have been terminated 'earlier'.

[Evnings]

We have a problem with cows getting out on one particulary dark road in town. We have to chase them back into the pasture to get them off the road so that they don't get hit by vehicles moving at 60+mph. Hitting a cow with a car will really ruin your day. The cows that get out always seem to be the dark colored ones, which makes it really hard to see them at night.

[txinvestigator1]

Shooter,

We had a horse get loose once and the following radio traffic was heard.

Dispatch: 1945, Check on a complaint of a horse in the roadway, Rand Morgan and Leopard. Contact the complainant there.

1945: 1945, 10-4.

several minutes later

1945: 1945 arrived, there he is running northbound down the center of Leopard.

Dispatch: 10-4 1945, can you tell who the horse belongs to?

1945: negative, no license plate displayed!

jeesh, dispatchers!!

[TexReserve]

Seems like in the county that I am a reserve deputy for, we get a lot of loose livestock calls. Last Saturday night I rode out, and all was quiet for the first hour. Then I jinxed us by telling my partner that I hoped we didn't have any loose livestock calls.

You guessed it, the next call we received was about three cows in someone's front yard. When we got there all we could find was one, and we chased her for a while, not being successful in catching her. We did at least get her off the roadway and in to a pasture. She was not near a major road, just small county roads with not much traffic.

The best part about the call was that it was not in our section, so if the cow got out again that night, it would be up to the deputy covering that section to chase her again.

[PeteBroccolo]

I have chased HERDS of cows that have gotten loose on the highway. An American trucker coming North ran into one of several cows that were loose from a farm about 3 miles North of the collision scene. It took my car, several trucks and ATV and the farmer, running beside them, to herd them back home.

Around Weyburn we have to scare off deer running through town. There is a kind of nature preserve on the West side of the city, and the deer often run in from there. The City PS had several reports of vehicle vs deer collisions DOWNTOWN last year, plus confused deer RUNNING THROUGH store-front plate glass windows.

The worst situation in my area, however, is on the busiest highway about 15 miles South East of town. There is this family that has about a 40 acre site they live on close to the highway. Within that site, however, they keep a large number of pot-bellied pigs. For years we have gotten complaints about these pigs getting out on the highway and cross roads near their place, and the near-miss collisions that people have had.

One night I was in the next town South East of this place. I got a call about a truck vs animal collision by this farm site. I met the complainant at his home in this one town, and I followed him and his wife back to the scene. He had been driving a 1999 Dodge extended cab 4x4 diesel pickup, which was in the South ditch, front end destroyed. Following the skid marks, we found a pot-bellied pig, the size of a VW Beetle, in the North ditch, split in 2. As I photographed the truck, I hear snorting, and there are 2 more such pigs in the South ditch.

By the time I woke the farmer up, got the complainant and his wife home and returned, the tow truck was removing the truck and the farmer, his wife and 2 daughters were chasing the one pig with a pickup truck, ATV and on foot. They never could find the 3rd pig, and this 2nd one nearly got run over by the train that went by.

The farmer said that the pig was too wild now, and wanted me to destroy it for him. No problem, out I bring my shot gun. 1 blast, pig goes down, but not dead. Not behind the ear, farmer say, but between the eyes. No problem, pump in the next shell. Pete does that, and my shotgun falls apart - the mag end cap had worked loose, and parts went everywhere.

Pull out the 9mm, 1 shot between the eyes, pig goes down. NOW the real fun starts - we searched for an hour, and found all the pieces to my gun EXCEPT the mag end cap.

I cringe every time I drive by that place. I also check my shot gun regularly now!

[Mitzi]

We just had an article in our newspaper about cows getting loose. Seems as tho "magic" mushroom grow out of cow patties and people come at night to the pastures the harvest these psycadelic (sp?) mushrooms. Farmers are having to really watch because these people will break the lock on gates to get in..therefore cows get out. And it's actually quite dangerous. Hittin a cow can cause death and injury.

[Lictalon]

I've been hanging out here too long. I actually had to stop and wonder for a minute what COW stood for...Thought it was some new police term I wasn't familiar with. My best guess was "Correctional Officer Wandering..."

[4n6det]

Welcome to Lancaster, PA. If we're not chasing some kind of live farm animal here at least once a week, something's wrong. Horses, pigs, cows, sheep, goats, etc. We have emus, elk and domestic deer here too, but I have yet to hear of any of them getting loose.

[shooter1201]

Don't get me started about emus......

[jarhead6073]

quote:

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Originally posted by Lictalon:
I've been hanging out here too long. I actually had to stop and wonder for a minute what COW stood for...Thought it was some new police term I wasn't familiar with. My best guess was "Correctional Officer Wandering..."

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You're not alone. I was doing the same thing!