Gatineua, Quebec Police Cow Incident...WWYD?

[Patriot86]

http://www.examiner.com/pet-rescue-i...o-escaped-cows

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/201...cattle-111102/

From the first link

Gatineau, Quebec - It's another YouTube video gone viral that shows Gatineau police open fire on an escaped cow late last week. Over 156,000 viewers have since watched the graphic video of police cars, lights, sirens - narrated by a witness who cannot believe that the police are really shooting the cow with "real" bullets.

The two cows, on their way to a slaughterhouse had a great idea to escape, but weren't lucky enough as some other escaped animals who have found sanctuary from rescue groups. These two cows, according to police were "threatening and dangerous."

The owner of the cows gave police permission to shoot the animals.

From the second link

A senior police officer in Gatineau, Que., is defending the fatal police shooting of two cattle last week, saying a video that captured the incident and was posted online -- does not show the whole story.

In an open letter to the media issued Tuesday, deputy police Chief Luc Beaudoin says his officers killed the animals because they were threatening the public.

Beaudoin acknowledged that the public is questioning why police didn't use tranquilizers or corral the animals that were already destined for the slaughterhouse when they escaped from a trailer last Thursday.

But he says the video is 77 seconds long and does not reflect the reality of the intervention, which lasted more than an hour, during which, he says, police consulted with the animals' owner and other cattle breeders in an effort to calm the animals and isolate them.

"An hour during which every attempt failed, and during which one of the animals, who may not have appeared dangerous to witnesses who had not seen the preceding 60 minutes, charged vehicles, moved a trailer by its sheer physical strength, and managed to once again escape, right there in the city near a school and busy roads."

Beaudoin also says police contacted wildlife officers "who unfortunately were unable to assist us."

and finally...the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=Jry92dhOtaw


IMO the video is not the best quality but it would appear that a house or some other kind of structure was in the line of fire during the first shooting, it also looks like a car was in the line of fire. (look towards the end, appears to be a driveway of some kind to the "left" of the camera man with the nose of a car entering a couple of frames)

Moreover, what kind of a city boy uses a pistol on large game like a cow?
What was accomplished with 10 pistol shots could have been done quick and clean with a single shotgun or rifle shot to the right area. This reminds me of that scene from "Me, Myself and Irene!"


So I will pose three questions: #1 if you were the officer, would you have shot in this case with your pistol, #2 considering the proximity and apparent lines of fire would you have shot if you had a rifle or shotgun, #3 Would you have shot ole Besse at all, or sought some alternate solution to the "rampaging" bovine?

For me
#1 NO
#2 Heck No
#3 There has GOT to be a better way to stop the cow than shooting it. Rope it, trank it, or trick the ow into moving to an enclosed or fenced off area. Cops all over the country(well America, not Canada) seem to stop escaped cows all the time without the need to fire 10 shots in close proximity to a populated area.

Also, This is more of a "tactics and training" thing IMO than legal at this point but if the mods feel they want to move it go for it.

[Stressfire]

One of our resident ranchers might have a better idea but:

They probably wouldn't get far, just get the heck out of the way and let them calm down.

Personally, I'd give them a pardon from the slaughterhouse for engineering a daring jailbreak

[Patriot86]

Yeah I know , give the cows a second chance!

Unless the cop was using FMJ's its going to be a little tough getting the fragments from 10 rounds out of that cow too....


For comical effect btw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfeZX...eature=related

[jglsprings]

Duplicate thread...

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=467389

[spacecoast]

The commentary was umm... amusing... "That's not really a gun, is it?"

My wife grew up on a dairy farm and unruly, escaped bulls, which the animal in question appeared to be, were occasionally shot with a rifle and then sold for meat. I agree that trying to bring down an upset, moving animal of that size with a handgun wasn't the most intelligent action. I wonder why they didn't use a rifle.

[Patriot86]

Any of our Canadian members chime in? I know here in the states many police cars now have some sort of AR style rifle or shotgun. We are talking about Quebec though so anything goes I guess.

[C0untZer0]

I went to NIU in DeKalb IL, it's not like bulls just decided to start escaping farms in 2011. We'd read about an escaped bull every so often, or an escaped cow.

It occasionally happens, we've been able to deal with it for decades without going all John Dillinger and blasting away at the animals with handguns.

One recent development though is the large animal taser. It's not a substitute for a tranq, but it will put them down if they're charging, and usually put them down without serious injury.

[Ruthless4christ]

was not able to view the video, but I might add, if the cow was mad and charging me, i may be tempted to shoot the thing whith whatever I had. Cows are alot bigger than me and can crush me pretty easily.

[Willie Lowman]

I have seen cows killed by a single shot from a .22 mag. Shot placement must be 100%.

As stated before, a 12 gauge slug would have worked wonders. Provided they hit the cow's brain, otherwise it would have been just as ugly.

[BikerRN]

And those "brave" police officers that protected society from the dangerous bovine will no doubt get an award from thier agency.

Back off, let the critter calm down, and then herd it in to an enclosure of some sort. Gee, not flashy but it works. I've been stepped on, run over, hooked, and all sorts of things by bovines. While they can kill you, or break bones, and really hurt you I've yet to see the need to shoot one.

My respect for street cops, as a whole, just keeps sinking lower and lower.

Biker

[briandg]

I had the expereince of seeing an enormous bull go running down the street in front of my house one day as I was working on my car. Changing antifreeze, iirc. That thing was angry, agitated, running like he had fishhooks in his nads, and 2 blocks away from a 5 lane highway. 4 blocks south was another one, and they both intersected there.

it made it onto the highway, and was eventually corraled without a shooting in that densely populated area. The only thing that kept that thing from turning really nasty was the presence of the traffic lights that slowed traffic in the area.

uneducated observation and hindsight are always good for a laugh. Of course, every PD in the world keeps trank guns and kits with darts that will work for everything from a shrew to an orca, and they can always be on hand with a trained user on hand within minutes of such an event. Every second LE officer was a cowboy 150 years ago, so at least that many ought to know how to corral a modern day cow. Come on, cows aren't smarter than people, are they? It's pretty obvious, btw, that these cops were all retards. They obviously thought that their itty bitty little cop pistols were adequate to take down the cow, and deliberately left the .458 magnum that all cops carry in the trunks behind, so they could go wild west on that big bad burger on the hoof.

Shoot the thing? OF COURSE YOU SHOOT IT!

The cow was obviously going for broke. It traveled about 100 yards in that minute of film, with a bunch of cars and cops trying to stop it. It may have caused a lethal traffic accident eventually. it may have rammed one of the cops against a car and broken bones or caused serious injury. Is killing an animal such a horrible thing that we should risk death or serious injury to either a bystander or an LE officer?

Cops are not rodeo clowns, and that isn't in their job description. Should a cop have to risk getting pinned to a car by a cow? Come on, people, don't you already make enough demands of them?


you try not to waste the thousand dollar beef on the hoof. When failure is obvious,

YOU STOMP THAT THING FLAT LIKE A RABID DOG.

it isn't like an escaped lion or charging griz, but they represent a threat, and you act on it. I don't see that the decision was wrong. It's likely that another 1/4 mile, it would have been back in a population center. It looked to me as if when that thing got to the cross road, that was where they had instructions to take it down, and stop trying for a live capture.

[Sarge]

Local rules apply. Use a slug.

[briandg]

Even a load of buckshot to the neck at close range would have taken that thing down almost instantaneously.

If they did have heavy weapons at their disposal and chose not to use them, I can't understand that decision.

Combat rounds, or even god forbid FMJ rounds out of a semiauto handgun are almost never what would be appropriate for taking on an animal that pretty much approximates an elk. Proof of that is how many rounds it took to put the thing down. A man would have been returning fire all that time.

[HiBC]

I'm not an ag person,but I have helped with spring roundups,etc.

That little bull was not charging anyone.It obviously thought all the strange folks and patrol cars were alien cattle mutilators and he just decided to leave.
He was leaving,not charging.

The officer who began shooting had his car between himself and the critter.His door was open.If he felt his immediate situation was unsafe,just getting in the car and closing the door would be sufficient.

It is OK for an urban person,even an LEO,to be scared around cattle.I climb in a corral with a bunch of range cattle and push momma cows away from their calves at spring roundup.Yeah,some bulls are mean,particularly dairy breeds.I give that officer the right to fear what he does not know.

But the LEO cannot start shooting just because he is afraid.

I fully accept it might be a reasonable solution to put the animal down.A minivan full of kids slamming into a beef on the hiway can certainly be a tragedy.Its OK for the folks on the ground to make that decision,whether I would or not.

But then it is time to get the shotgun or patrol rifle out of the trunk,one clean shot,and its done.Folks have to use their minds.

What we saw was out of control emotion pulling a trigger.

That can be really tragic if that officer is facing people.

I do not think its right to smear this on LEO's in general.One individual who is not made of the right stuff has a job he does not fit.

That is why ,at Mayberry,Andy only gave Barney his bullet on special occasions.Andy was still cool.

Use it as a case study.Learn something,and call it good.

What I think is interesting,if I were to shoot ,trap,poison,or otherwise harm one of the racoons that are digging the poles out from under my shed,I would be arrested and charged with felony cruelty.

I think we all ought to live by the same rules.

[Mobuck]

Some marksmanship would help by putting a bullet through the forehead at the intersection of two lines drawn from left eye to right ear base and vice versa. Having the nerve to place oneself in the position for a frontal shot is a challenge. I've had to do this multiple times on animals that had gone completely berserk and nothing less would stop them and on animals hopelessly injured. Pistol shots to the body is basically a waste of time and borderline inhumane.
This being a Canadian location, the probability of the "owner" having a suitable firearm in his vehicle would be very slim. I do understand the concern that the animals would run into active traffic lanes and cause an accident.

[m&p45acp10+1]

I see from reading that they tried for an hour to corral the cows. Ok so maybe they did not know how to do it, and did all the wrong things. After an hour, and I can say that steer probably did charge, and ram a car. I have seen more than a couple of ol' mossy horned steer that were just plain breserk.

If I had orders to shoot a cow if it was at a such and such point I would shoot the cow. Orders are orders.

If I all I had was a handgun I would use it. I would try for a shot to the neck near the spine in hopes of hitting something that would take the cow down. A coup de grace to the back of the head where the spinal collum, and brain meet to finnish it off if need be.

I would prefer a rifle, or shotgun with a slug though.

[briandg]

The thing that is most important to me in that video is that right there, where the roads joined, the incident ended after over an hour. As you say, the minivan with a soccer mom and a dozen kids may have been on that road; it may have been only a few blocks away from a school that had just let out. I believe, based on what I saw, that they had instructions to stop it right there, and either were lacking in sense or lacking in equipment and improvised by using handguns and body shots.

I may not have the correct interpretation of events, I wasn't there, but hindsight is telling me that this group of cops could not have all been idiots. the situation as they saw it called for this.

Once again, no, it wasn't a charging rhino. In a perfect world they would have gently lassoed the thing and led it to a petting zoo.

instead, they seem to have acted reasonably in pursuit of public safety. Of course, cell phone footage only shows what the guy with the camera and the Yootoob account wants you to see. The lost episode of Car 54, "Gunther and francis take up ranching."

[spacecoast]

If they were bull wrangling for an hour, they had plenty of time to round up a decent deer rifle or shotgun/slug.

[carguychris]

This being a Canadian location, the probability of the "owner" having a suitable firearm in his vehicle would be very slim.

In a vehicle, this is true, but in many parts of Canada, you might be surprised how many "three oh threes" (Lee-Enfields) you'll encounter if you start going through people's closets.

[ClayInTx]

Abject stupidity. “We’re the police and we know everything.”

It certainly doesn’t help the attitude toward truly qualified police, the majority.

Any animal, including humans, is excited and made nervous by flashing lights and undulating noise. Here are a bunch of idiots running cruisers up and down the road with flashing lights and sirens chasing a steer and expecting it to obey (really?) some sort of command to stop. ?????

The “owner” who gave permission to shoot it is likely not a cattleman and had bought the cattle just to haul to market. Or it could be he wasn’t the owner but merely a truck driver hired to haul.

Had the police just backed off and let the animal calm down it would have hurt no one and soon been corralled.

I was raised on a farm with all kinds of domestic animals and learned that whenever you “push” an animal it becomes excited and if cornered it gets aggressive in its defense. Even rabbits will do this.

[TailGator]

It is true that we saw the last 77 seconds of a one-hour encounter. We did not see how close the steer was to major highways, and no one has said that they have any first hand knowledge of the location, the expectation of traffic on the roads in the picture, or proximity to occupied dwellings.

But even considering those limitations, this was mishandled in several ways. Like several others who have posted, I have been around livestock of various sorts, and the animal in the video did not display aggression. He was at times clearly frightened, but calmed down rather promptly after being frightened, increasing my impression that the danger was minimal. It is also worthy of note that he was either polled or dehorned. There were ample opportunities to use the cars and truck to corral the animal safely and get more qualified help. There is little doubt that he could have been easily roped if given just a couple of minutes to calm down, and confining him with the cars would have given opportunity to get someone on scene who could handle the situation appropriately, if the preceding hour had not given enough opportunity. If firearms had to be employed, pistol shots to the chest and, apparently, forelimb (judging by the sudden non-weight-bearing lameness of the left foreleg) are not the appropriate means. A pistol shot to the head could have been done humanely and quite safely. Rifles or shotgun slugs could also have been employed. Multiple lung shots are not a humane way of putting an animal down.

The video ends before the steer is dead, so we don't really know how much longer it went on or how the steer died. I am not a vegetarian or an animal rights activist, but I still believe in treating animals humanely even when they are to become food. This was not humane.

[insaneranger]

Who else likes lead in their Big Macs?

[ProShooter]

I would think that 3 police cars forming a triangle would have captured the beast, rather than letting it die slowly from a GSW.


Where's the beef!

[markj]

City folk that animal could easily harm a person just by running into him. I work steers on my place and I can tell you they will hand you a plate full of hurt if you are not carefull. and thats just them playing around. A fence, no matter how big is just a suggestion to a cow, it can run thru just about anything and a steer that size can jump over a 5 ft fence with ease.

Best leave the cows to cowboys a bucket of corn and he woulda followed me home like a pet dog. Just gotta know how to handle them.

[HiBC]

As a teen/kid I got the job of halter breaking 4 yearling Angus bull calves.In this part of Oklahoma the build corrals with rr tie posts and rough sawn native oak 1 by 6 0r 8 lumber.I got sent through a few of those 1 by six boards.
I agree,cattle can hurt you.I have some history in Wisconsin.Some dairy bulls will kill you.Some dairy farmers learn that the hard way.

But that steer or bull calf,whichever,was only trying to leave when the shooting started.The second officer was 10 yds away shooting him,and that critter made absolutely no hostile move.It was more "You have got to be kidding me!".

I have a pretty good idea what a critter that wants to hurt me looks like.
It was not there.