This cow was on the lam!
A wayward steer led police on an hours-long chase through Windsor Terrace and into Prospect Park this morning before the department’s special-operations officers managed to corral the beast — despite their general lack of rodeo experience, according to an officer on the scene.
“It’s not a common occurrence,” said Charles Scholl, deputy chief of Brooklyn South patrol bureau, which covers the nabe. “But the NYPD rises to the occasion.”
The loose cow was first spotted around 11:25 am, according to cops, and a local animal-lover hit the streets not long after in an attempt to trail it as it meandered through the area, he said.
“I got a call that the cow was running along the Prospect Expressway, headed towards Tenth Avenue,” said Sean Casey, the owner of Kensington’s Sean Casey Animal Rescue. “So I shot up that way in my truck, and bounced around the neighborhood as I followed where it went.”
Casey said he stalked the animal as it exited the expressway at Tenth Avenue, then moseyed along Prospect Avenue before turning on to Caton Avenue and heading into the Prospect Park Parade Ground, where officers tranquilized it after failing to trap the agile beast using soccer goals, according to another witness.
“It went into the field and officers tried to trap it with two goals, but failed,” said A.J. Beato, who lives near the park. “They had tranquilizers at the ready, but nothing happened to it.”
The doped-up cow then meandered into the fenced-in dugout of a ball field inside the parade grounds and, after a second failed attempt to contain it using a soccer goal, cops used department vehicles to pen in the beast, which they finally steered into a van nearly two hours after it was first spotted, according to Casey, who commended the cops for their unconventional rescue operation.
“The tried with the goal post, but there’s no bottom to it, so he was able to just pass through the net,” Casey said. “It would have been easier if they could lasso or wrangle him, but your average police officer is not trained to corral cows. Their effort was well done.”
Police took the bovine, which Scholl said looked “very healthy” when it was captured, to Brooklyn Animal Care Center at 2336 Linden Blvd. for further assessment following its time on the range. It will remain there until an owner or rescue organization comes to claim it, he said.
“We’ll see if the owner is located or if a rescue group comes to save it,” the deputy chief said. “I think there is a group already interested.”
The cow, which had two tags on its back, likely escaped from a truck or a meat market, according to Casey, who is nonetheless optimistic that the attention its time on the lam garnered may save it from certain death at a slaughterhouse.
“I would think, most likely, it will end up at a sanctuary. That tends to happen because of the media coverage,” he said, “Hopefully, he earned a free pass here.”
