About 40 cows escaped Tuesday night from the slaughterhouse where they were to end their days, leading the police called to the rescue in a long rodeo in the middle of a residential area in eastern Los Angeles.
The fleeing cattle roamed the small streets of Pico Rivera, sometimes lingering on the lawns of houses or crossing fences as shown in images broadcast by local televisions.
Men of the Los Angeles sheriff, helped by mounted police officers dispatched to reinforce them, had to spend several hours regrouping them, trying to immobilize them at the end of a dead end, before evacuating them in cattle trucks.
In total, 38 of the 40 cows, which had escaped by taking advantage of a slaughterhouse gate left open, were found. One of them was still missing on Wednesday morning.
The last cow died: presumably frightened, she had loaded a family of four, knocking some to the ground, and a police officer opened fire on her, killing her “to prevent the family from sustaining further injuries”, said the sheriff’s services.
– .
