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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Cow eludes butcher, roams Valley streets

A good roping horse would have come in handy Tuesday morning as a large, angry black Angus rampaged freely though Spokane Valley streets and yards with police officers in pursuit.

The mad bovine charged two officers at one point in the chase before finally being brought down by multiple shotgun blasts.

The cow escaped from a fenced yard in the 12100 block of east Sixth shortly after 7 a.m. after a butcher shot the animal in the head in an attempt to kill it, said Spokane Valley Police Department spokesman Cpl. Dave Reagan.

Numerous residents called police to report the fleeing cow as it headed northwest, crossing Pines, Sprague and Broadway.

“It was ornery,” said Spokane County Sheriff’s Deputy Mike Drapeau. “We tried to corral it and she wouldn’t have any of it. It tried to ram my car.”

Officers knew the cow was being butchered and didn’t spend a lot of time in what likely would have been a futile effort to trap it, Reagan said. “Residential fences are not designed to hold unhappy cows,” he said.

Officers Lee Bates and Greg Lance were searching for the animal behind the Ann-Tone Apartments at 13507 E. Mission when the cow came from behind a garden shed and charged. “They hit the cow several times, but it didn’t go down,” Reagan said.

The cow headed back south into an empty field at Blake and Mission where officers shot it three more times with 12-gauge shotguns before it finally dropped. Even then the butcher had to finish it off.

Resident Chris Wetherell saw the end of the drama from his apartment window. “They must have just shot it,” he said. “It was still kicking. I assumed it was a bear or something.”

Reagan said there is an exemption in the Spokane County no-shooting law that allows people to slaughter animals for “commercial or domestic purposes” in a residential area.