Loose cow Tasered by deputies dies

Spokane County sheriff’s deputies killed a stray cow Wednesday morning after repeatedly stunning it with a Taser when the animal wandered in traffic near Spokane Valley Mall.

State law requires deputies “to do whatever you can do to keep somebody from dying as a result of collision with a cow,” said sheriff’s Sgt. Dave Reagan.

Two other cows that escaped in the morning – sometime before 6:45 a.m. – were rounded up by their owners.

The animal that wasn’t caught had been trotting up and down Sullivan Road and at one point got onto a freeway ramp, Reagan said. He said the bovine had been loose for more than four hours when deputies cornered it about 11 a.m. between the mall and Interstate 90.

“This was at Sprague and Sullivan,” Reagan said. “It’s one of the hot spots for accidents out in the Spokane Valley, and you just can’t walk away.”

Several deputies – who had seen a video of a Brahman bull being incapacitated by a Taser – decided to stun the creature and tie its legs with a long leather strap ordinarily used to restrain kicking humans. But the cow recovered before the strap could be used.

“We’re not cowboys,” he said. “I don’t believe we have any rodeo champions on staff.”

Consequently, deputies zapped the cow “again and again” and the animal died, Reagan said.

No action was planned against the owner of the cow, but Reagan warned that livestock owners need good fences in increasingly urban Spokane Valley.

– John Craig

Whitman County

Inmate’s hanging declared a suicide

Whitman County Coroner Peter Martin ruled Wednesday that last week’s hanging death of a Whitman County Jail inmate was a suicide.

Martin identified the victim as Jimmy Daryl Cousins, 45. Cousins died about 12:45 a.m. April 4.

Sheriff Brett Myers said Cousins had been sentenced on Monday to five years in prison for first-degree child molestation.

Cousins was awaiting transportation to the state Department of Correction’s sex offender unit when he hanged himself, Myers said.

– John Craig