Shortly after, the heifer was found running wildly along the banks of the Wabash, said Lt. Jim Taul of the Lafayette Police Department. Four officers armed with shotguns and AR-15 rifles responded.When's the last time your city PD went all tactical to take down a rogue cow?
Further, I challenge you to read the following line from the news report and keep a straight face:
Taul said it appeared that the heifer was going to charge at officers, who were able to get onto a nearby island.I've been chased by a ticked-off cow before, and I can only imagine the chaos Bessie could cause on a city street if she had a mind to, but something about that deadpan delivery just hits me right in the funnybone.
I mean, if you're a journalism grad working the desk at a small-town newspaper and find out that the local po-po had to go all SWAT on an "uncooperative heifer", you thank your lucky stars, because this is an opportunity that only comes along once in a lifetime.
Aaagh!!!! Giant saber toothed cows! Run away!
ReplyDeleteShot it in the river? Was it trying to reach the safety of West Lafayette?
ReplyDeleteWas the cow's court-appointed attorney available for comment?
I wonder if Officer Swick is sporting a kill marker in the shape of a cow while he cruises downtown Lafayette?
Shootin' Buddy
If it crossed into West Lafayette, wouldn't they have just set up one of those "Multi-Jurisdictional Task Force" thingies?
ReplyDeleteThat is total ignorance! During my last visit to Virginia while pumping gas I noticed a calf wandering around the road. Store personnel and I jumped up, people driving by parked, stopped traffic and herded the calf back into the fence. I did enjoy the fact the the calf did test the "grass is greener" concept while moving back to the gate!
ReplyDeleteWe did not call the popo, only thing remotely there would have been county deputies or VA State Police.
Sheesh! We handled it people! Armed response? Give me a break! Bessie is not going to whip out a gat! Maybe a land mine for later, but still.....
Obviously dire cows. Those extra hit dice make a real difference for poodle sho...uh, .223.
ReplyDeleteOh, and I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue! (Sorry, I had to do that based on your opening)
ReplyDeleteTaul said it appeared that the heifer was going to charge at officers, who were able to get onto a nearby island.
ReplyDeleteWhy am I reminded of Ney crossing the Niemen (headed west)?
I am reminded of Alexander crossing the Hydaspes river before engaging Porus in a pincer attack.
ReplyDeleteBessie didn't have a chance against such classicists as these.
Dammit! Ken took my joke.
ReplyDeleteI failed the challenge.
ReplyDeleteReminded me of when I was in Germany back in the mid 70's. A farmer's tractor scared a bull through a fence and onto the road...
ReplyDelete...right into the path of an M-60 tank!
Fifteen hundred pounds of ground beef all over the road.
Wussies. It wasn't even an armored zombie cow.
ReplyDeleteBad cows, bad cows, what ya gonna do? What ya gonna do when they come for ewe?*
ReplyDelete*swim to West Lafayette apparently
Shootin' Buddy
At 1,200 pounds, I gayrawndamtee you that it was a cow, not a heifer. You're out of the heifer bidness somewhere around 500 or 600 pounds.
ReplyDeleteMight's well shoot the damned thing. Probably a shortage of cowboys on horseback, with roping skills.
But they should have let the barbecue guy go on and butcher it out. Nothing wrong with the meat...
"Ask not what your county can do for moo. Ask what moo can do for your county."
ReplyDeleteJesus Christ! It's a Heifer! Get in the car!!
ReplyDeleteOr, "Grab yer rifle/shotgun!"
Jon B.
Gotta watch them cows...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQMbXvn2RNI
When was the last time? Around here, just a couple of years ago:
ReplyDeleteM
Sounds like the Lafayette Po-Po need the expertise of the Indy Po-Po: 1) Grab a bottle of Jack. 2) Get likkered up. 3) Get behind the wheel of a Cruiser and drive to the scene of the crime... No more cow problem.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the official policy of West Lafayette on wet hooves vs. dry hooves amnesty?
ReplyDeleteIf you give the cops a hammer (military pattern rifles),.....everything looks like a nail.
ReplyDelete"When's the last time your city PD went all tactical to take down a rogue cow?"
ReplyDeleteUmm ..... 2007. Omaha.
Cattle truck overturned. 42 cattle involved. OPD killed all of them that survived the crash. Guess they didn't want any witnesses.
ReplyDeleteOut of moo-rbid curiosity, what gun for Betsie?
ReplyDeleteJim
1st:
ReplyDeleteThe heifer had just been unloaded and was inside Beutler Barbecue, Meats and Catering on South First Street ...
"It was just a wild, worked-up heifer that didn't want to be inside," Beutler said.
"was inside Beutler Barbecue, Meats and Catering"
CAN YOU BLAME IT? I'd run too!
2nd
I obviously wasn't there, but I somehow suspect that wrangling a cow ain't usually that tough once it has had time to calm down. A little rope, a bumper hitch to tie off to, an armful of grass as a peace offering and pretty soon you are leading bessie down the street right easy-like.
The butcher down the street uses a 9mm Glock, I understand.
ReplyDeleteCuriously, so does the OPD.
ReplyDeleteI was once chased into the back of a pickup truck by a california sea lion. I tried to get it back in the water and it tried to bite a hunk off my ass. The choice was to shoot it in front of a thousand tourists (and shooting a 9mm, there was really little chance I'd do more than irritate it) or run. I chose to discard my dignity hopped up on the back of my nearby police pickup truck while it barked at me and tried to climb a Dodge bumper. It may have just been love, I can't be certain.
ReplyDeleteI still live in fear that somewhere someone has video of that encounter. It it's anyone here, yes, I will pay blackmail.
On the other side of the looking glass, Plod has a minor problem with a horse
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that their way sucked less than mine.
ReplyDeleteKnocked down a 7' cinderblock wall? Rammed a vehicle? Sound like Elsie was a mad cow.
She lived in the next field to me. She was a good cow, she never caused no trouble. She wouldn't threaten no one. I know the newspapers aren't telling the whole story.
ReplyDeleteAnother case of the death penalty for WWB.
(Walking while bovine.)
Cows will run over you while horses will generally not. Generally but not always.
ReplyDeleteMy single one time catch was 37 Holstien heifers that got loose from a local dairy farm. Used a horse to catch one and the rest just followed along.
Same horse decided to escape last week and show off to the crowd. Did not call police and wayward horse returned to barn and lawyered up.
Gerry
@reflectoscope: Out of moo-rbid curiosity, what gun for Betsie?
ReplyDeleteMoosin-Nagant. Duh. ;)
perlhaqr,
ReplyDeleteOuch. :o
Ain't you 'shamed?
Nah, lost my sense 'o that years ago. :D
ReplyDeleteWV: "boillad" -- That sounds bad for the lad.
Well, I was going to laugh at the wussy cops too (I love doing that) until I RTWT. Having come upon distraught heifers myself from time to time, my experience is that they're really looking for someone to talk to it calmly and tell it what to do.
ReplyDeleteThis one, though, escaping from a slaughterhouse and understandably rather more than "distraught" - my first impulse would involve guns, too.
Joel,
ReplyDeleteI think it's more the dry phrasing that is funny.
Given a freaked-out cow loose on city streets, I'd have gone to guns as soon as I had a clear backstop myself.
As a man who regularly has to run the landlord's cows out of my yard (he's got the concept of fencing, but his execution isn't so hot), I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Okay, I'll laugh, 'cause it's a bunch of city Yankees.
ReplyDeleteActually, I don't "run" them out, but I'm not up on the verb forms of "to gimp."
I gimp.
ReplyDeleteYou gimp.
He, she, it may gimp, if they were in a bad enough motorcycle wreck, too. ;)
I was once chased into the back of a pickup truck by a california sea lion.
ReplyDeleteMy impression of seals and sea lions was changed forever once I realized that, evolutionarily speaking, they are seagoing bears.
That and time to contemplate that their dentition looks like this.
Last time some cows got loose in the stockyards area, OCPD gave us news footage of a couple of cars, a few officers on foot and one motorcycle cutting them off from the escape route and shooing them back where they belonged. They may have their shortcomings, but no AR variants or scatterguns required.
ReplyDeleteLabRat, that's like the first time I saw the skull from an adult baboon; looks like a small lion, BIG fangs.
ReplyDeleteWhy did they need a SWAT team for a cow? Around here all it takes is a farm girl with a stick to herd one around.
ReplyDeleteWhat BobG said. This happens all time around my home town, and no one has ever had to call the Poh-Leese. If you called the poh-leese, they'd probably laugh at you. Why just a few weeks ago, I had two grown hog in my yard, and it never occurred to me put on my ninja suit. I just herded them back into their pen.
ReplyDeleteHell, Bob, one farm girl can take care of a whole heard if she plays it right.
The inmate however, or now running this asylum.
The inmates, however, are now running this asylum. -- Lyle
ReplyDeleteThe takeaway here of course is that the police were just itching to kill something. Or someone. And would jump at the flimsiest of chances. Well, that and they're amazing, stunning cowards of an unbelievable magnitude. -- Lyle
ReplyDeleteWhat gun for heifer? Well, if you want to keep it kosher, a Moozi...
ReplyDeleteHuh, I had visions of an extremely large, extremely angry black woman in shorts and halter top. I could only envision the race riots that would ensue after her execution by police. Oh, a heifer is a cow, you say. Oh. Makes more sense now.
ReplyDeleteSome of y'all can stay right the hell off my side.
ReplyDeleteIn Hawaii feral cattle comprise a year-round, no-bag limit, hunting season. Check out the spread on the Vancouver Bull. And you can hunt pigs with knives and spears - but you'd better bring a couple dogs because the tuskers can kill you out in the jungle.
ReplyDeleteBut Dept. Of Fish and Game can do it by helicopter - cool if they have a Dillon on a pintle.
@perhaqr - Well played, sir.
ReplyDeleteJim
Sigh! I possess a local copy of Our Tam's um, "yachting photograph" from back when she was just a heifer, so to speak. Judging from the facial expression, she was being uncooperative. IMHO, "being uncooperative" is one of her finest qualities, and I wish I were more that way, m'self.
ReplyDeleteYo Tam,
ReplyDeleteThat cow probably made a "furtive movement" and "lunged" towards the poe-leece., so the coroner's inquest will exonerate the pigs yet again.
Dave
Did they reveal what kind of bullet put an end to this beef?
ReplyDeleteI suspected that to be the case, but thanks for clearing it up, Tam. You are, indeed, The Mistress.
ReplyDeletestaghounds,
ReplyDeleteA round of 55gr Federal to the melon.
Tennessee Budd,
:D
Dammit, missed this post until now!
ReplyDeleteSounds like very few of y'all have had a "Bovine situation". So, me, an East coast military brat gets his first job land surveying in Iowa (due to new wifey's residency @ U of Iowa) we are at a farm, way West of Dubuque, and over the walkie-talkie:
Me: "Uh, Terry, there's a bull in this pasture..."
T: "Get out of there now."
Me: "Okay, I'll be... F**K, here he comes!" (Thundering Hooves)
I dropped the $6,000 worth of survey equipment in my hands, ran 40 yards in 3 seconds, and dove over the 5 foot, electrified fence in a single leap. The NFL combine should feature Black Angus Bull "motivators" records will be set.
P.S. - Now I love to eat Black Angus steak - like no other.
ReplyDeleteBefore I read the article I was thinking had I been there I would have taken it down with my bare hands, used my belt for a rope and lead it back to where it belonged.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading it, "I don't think the word 'heifer' means what you think it means. Where's my '06?"