LF: Escaped Cow that became Social Media Sensation is Shot and Killed by Deputies

Title: Escaped Cow that became Social Media Sensation is Shot and Killed by Deputies
Source: News Maven
URL Source: https://newsmaven.io/pinacnews/eye- ... puties-3XrV4D-uxE6-s8pxK8qZqQ/
Published: Aug 15, 2019
Author: Carlos Miller
Post Date: 2019-08-15 08:01:32 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 3253
Comments: 33

Bitsy, a two-year-old cow that became a social media sensation in Brooke County, West Virginia after it escaped from its pasture, was shot and killed by a sheriff's deputy Saturday who viewed it as a threat.

"I can rest assured that the public is a lot safer because of the decision I made," Brooke County Chief Deputy Scott Adams told WTOV 9.

But Bitsy's owner Mike Dillie said the cow was harmless and has escaped before to play with a neighbor's dog, only to return.

The cow was killed after being loose for several days where it had been spotted by locals at random locations, prompting conversations and photos on social media. But the cow never stood around long enough for its owner to retrieve it.

On Saturday, Bitsy's body was found with several bullet wounds to her face and neck. Dillie was told the cow was shot by deputies who confirmed they did when he called, according to WTRF.

"A cow on a roadway is very dangerous," said Adams. "We had to destroy the animal for the best interest of the public."

Adams also said they are contemplating charges against Dillie. They're just not sure of what yet.

So - we can add cows to the list of animals that cops are a-skeered of, along with goats, ponies, Chihuahuas, cats.

Brooke County Sherriff’s Department released a statement regarding the actions of a cow being shot yesterday. This statement comes from the deputy on scene, Matthew Adams:

For approximately the past 10-12 days, our office received over 30 calls in regard to a cow that was roaming loose in the Hooverson Heights are of Brooke County. Those calls included the destruction of property and the animal being on the roadway. Several attempts by law enforcement as well as the general public to capture the animal yielded negative results. The owner/caretaker of the animal was contacted on several occasions but refused to do anything to remedy the situation. After locating the animal in the early morning hours of Saturday, August 10th, members of the Brooke County Sheriff’s Office and Follansbee PD again attempted to capture the animal, with negative results. Due to the animal being a threat and danger to the public, most notably the driving public in that area, I made the decision to destroy the animal.
https://www.wtrf.com/news/local-news/brooke-county-sheriff-dept-responds-to-cow- shooting/

Cows Are Deadlier Than You Ever Knew

Every year, cows kill more people than sharks. And yet nobody ever makes a horror movie about them, and there's no Cow Week. These deadly beasts have managed to stay completely under the radar... until now. Find out just why cows are so deadly.

Deliberate Attacks on People
In the United States, the CDC estimates that about twenty-two people are killed by cows each year, and of those cow attacks, seventy-five percent were known to be deliberate attacks. One third of the killings were committed by cows that had previously displayed aggressive behavior.

People know that bulls are dangerous, and it's true. When animal behaviorists analyzed 21 cases that occurred across a four-state area, they found that bulls were responsible for ten of the deaths. Cows were responsible for six deaths. What's really chilling is that, in five cases, people were killed by multiple cows in group attacks.

Group attacks can be surprisingly well-coordinated. When they're feeling defensive, cows will gather in a circle, all facing outwards, lowering their heads and stamping the ground. When they're feeling offensive, certain cows lead the charge. One man, who was attacked while walking his dog along a path, reported, "I fell forwards and rolled into a ball and every time I tried to get up they jumped on me; they were rolling me along the hill with their legs trying to get me to open up. There were seven or eight cows. There were a couple leaders."

Even the people who survive cow attacks rarely brush them off. In 2014, a mountaineer and cyclist was leading a race through a pasture when a group of cows attacked him. He received fractures on eight ribs, a shoulder, and a part of his spine. A woman, attacked the same year, got six broken ribs and a punctured lung. Cows mostly trample and kick people, but if they get their head beneath their victim they can literally throw a person into the air and let them fall back down on the ground.

Humans may not be able to trust cattle, but non-humans have been known to employ cows as security. Sheep raised with cows will run into the center of the cow- herd when faced with a threat, knowing that if things get hairy, the cows will take care of business.

Battle Cows
Because they move slowly and require a lot of grass and water, cows are impractical standard weapons of war. That hasn't stopped people from using them as improvised weapons, especially if the other side was dumb enough to bring them along. A herd of cows' potential to do damage is even more infamous. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with old Westerns knows what's going to happen when someone shouts, "Stampede!"

Illustration for article titled Cows Are Deadlier Than You Ever Knew George Armstrong Custer wrote a memoir in which he described Native Americans inducing cattle to stampede as either a distraction tactic or an outright attack. No matter what the purpose, soldiers knew that they had to take the cattle in hand before doing anything else. Another book, tellingly entitled The Uncivilized Races of Men in All Countries of the World and written in 1878, recounts the conflict between the Boers and the Zulu. The author, Reverend John George Wood writes, "The Zulus have sometimes outwitted the Boers, by introducing inside of a camp at night, scouts, who speared the cattle frightening them into a stampede." Both books insist this is not the right way to fight a war, but admit the tactic is a good one. A stampede of cows is a scary thing.

Kamikaze Cows
Cows don't have to intend anyone's death in order to kill them. Any fifteen hundred pound animal can do a lot of damage, which is why some motorists, driving beside cliffs in rural country, have been amused by signs warning them about falling cows. It wasn't so much of a joke when, in Switzerland, over the course of a few weeks, twenty-eight cows either fell or jumped over a cliff. A man in Brazil was killed by a cow that fell on his car. And, in Indiana, drivers along a highway were startled when a trailer on an overpass tipped over and rained cows on them. A bull survived the fall and ran amok on the highway, attacking a tow-truck driver.

The Summer of the Cow
Many people think that the book Jaws (which became an iconic movie) was based on the events that occurred in July of 1916. Over twelve days, five people along the coast of New Jersey were attacked by sharks. Four of them died. It was called "the summer of the shark."

People would be embarrassed to call summer of 2009 "the summer of the cow," but in eight weeks, in Britain alone, cows racked up the same number of casualties. (That was also the summer that cows started jumping off the cliff in Switzerland.)

Two of the victims were walking their dogs — and dogs are often a factor in cow attacks. Cows become agitated by the quick-moving dogs and attack the dog. When the owner steps in to try to save their dog, the cows turn on them. Sometimes, however, factors beyond anyone's control can instigate aggressive behavior. The fourth casualty, a farmer, was probably trampled after a passing fire engine startled his cows.

After the multiple deaths, the cows turned on a politician. David Blunkett, a British Member of Parliament, was attacked by cows as he walked his dog. He escaped with only a black eye and a cracked rib, but it started people talking about safety measures around cows. The usual commonsense precautions figured highly on most how-to lists. Walkers were to give cows a wide berth and keep control of their dogs.

Then things got weird. One list of tips includes, "Remember, you are in charge. You need to know you're in control for the cows to know you're in control."

How, exactly, are we supposed to do that?

Warning: They've Got a Taste For Blood
It's possible that all the trouble we have with cows goes back to one spectacularly ill-advised news story. In 1931 Time magazine published an article about the positive effects of feeding a cow meat. The article starts off by saying, "Dairymen on the Didsbury Jersey farms at Didsbury, Alberta, last week argued that it was a meat diet which caused one of their cows, Waikiki Xenia's Fanny, to produce almost pure cream." Who could resist the potential for profit? Perhaps farmers tried it, and turned their cows into blood thirsty killers.

Or perhaps it was something that was always natural to them. A cow in India made headlines a few years ago for eating about fifty chicks, one of them on camera. In an article about meat-eating deer, one io9 reader with nerves of steel, reported to us that cows occasionally also eat barn kittens.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/cows-are-deadlier-than-you-ever-knew-1690950434

Cows in heat mount other cows as much as bull's do. A farmer may be unaware that the cow is in heat until he feels her chin come to rest on his shoulder. Better know how to spin out of her mount or he's going to be smashed into the ground.

I read the article and I'm a little skeptical about cows eating baby chicks. A cow can barely open their mouths, no more than an inch, maybe inch and half. Perhaps if the chick was dead and covered in molasses...still I don't think they'd tolerate the texture of it. But since this occurred in India, who knows!

The most dangerous time to be a cow, while around humans, is when that human knows where the cow stands, on the food chain.

Any loose animal, damaging a HUMANS property, should die.... even if a animal loving liberal libertarian will cry.

GrandIsland, you are a police officer. You bear the authority of God to keep order in a very disorderly world. Even so, you have to act according to God's highest standards. If you fail, we are all going down...right into a godless mess.

God has me on a pension... policing the disorderly, is better suited for the younger officers.

I now have a much easier job. I investigate the crimes of the already incarcerated. When they break the law (homicide, rape, assault, larceny, attempted escape, drug introductions, criminal mischief, contempt, witness & victim intimidation... or exposing the uniform staff with bodily fluids), I charge them.

It’s simple, much more laid back than policing the sheeple... and I’m already vested in pension number TWO. (Don’t tell Ba Ba Ba Bucky, He’ll shit himself).

For some reason, people still don't grasp this is an assault on an officer. And very likely to raise the sentence imposed on a convicted prisoner considerably.

They know they've raised the stakes much higher if they shoot a cop. Why don't these potatoheads get the message that you don't throw body fluids at them either?

2) Some, just make poor choices, heat of the moment... in some cases the officer forgets he goes home at the end of his shift, and the inmate doesn’t, and the officer acts less than professional.

Either way... I don’t have to chase anyone, fight anyone or in most cases, even interview the shitbird. Just base the arrest on officer reports and VIDEO.

Do you have any good conversations with prisoners as in a human being relating and talking to a fellow human being?

I have encountered a few, that adamantly swear, their innocence. 99% of them, end up pleading guilty, via a plea bargain. I did have one death investigation (suicide), where the inmate still proclaimed their innocence to the bitter end. They were sex related charges.

There have to at least a few, particularly when we see such extensive use of plea bargaining. It's a little scary to realize just how much incentive a prosecutor has to really use the system to rack up a huge score of convictions, whatever it takes. We see so many complaints against cops on these threads but the real problem is the prosecutors and the judges, both of whom are failing in so many ways.

It's not just the cops, the prosecutors and the news media who are cynical of claims of innocence. Even their fellow-convicts and their own lawyers don't believe these claims.

And yet we know some of them are innocent when someone else confesses, a woman admits she made up rape charges, etc.

Too many people have too many incentives to game the system. The decay of moral fiber across society makes it that much harder to have a neutral and competent criminal justice system. Suddenly, that just looks so much harder to achieve. It's hard to be confident that we are seeing anything other than a societal decline.