Bull Captured After Leading Police On Chase In Jamaica, Queens Has Died
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- The tale of a bull on the run through a Queens neighborhood has come to a sad conclusion.
The bull that was first spotted Tuesday morning on Lakewood Avenue near Sutphin and Archer in Jamaica has died.
It escaped from the Aziz Slaughterhouse on Beaver Street. A butcher told CBS2's Ali Bauman he was moving a large group of cows and believes the animal heard a noise, got scared and escaped through the fencing.
"It ended up getting away through the back door, breaking the fence down and running," a slaughterhouse employee said.
Even though the bull was hit with several tranquilizer darts, it managed to continue to make its way through Queens for hours.
"Just another day in New York!" one woman said.
"From where you're at to right here, I was face-to-face with the live bull, and then I shift to the left, he went to the right," Jamaica resident Jimmy King said.
The bull ran away from police and into a yard on Marsden Street near 118th Avenue. Valerie Valgean was home when she heard the commotion outside and her son yelling.
"He says, 'a bull!' And I'm like, a bull, what do you mean a bull? Because seeing is believing, I had to look out the window, and I was like it's really a bull!" she said.
Police tried to corner the animal in the yard, shooting it with tranquilizers. Valgean said the animal jumped her neighbor's fence, then jumped back over, breaking it in the process. It then squeezed its way out between the fence and a car, denting the driver's side.
"He didn't want to go," she said. "He didn't want to be anybody's steak tonight."
From there, the race resumed, but police eventually wrangled the bull in another yard.
"I cannot believe it. I mean, in Jamaica, you would think this was a farm," the homeowner said.
After being captured alive, the bull was loaded into a trailer, but sadly died en-route during transport to the Center for Animal Care and Control on Linden Blvd in Brooklyn.
The cause of death has not been determined and the bull's remains will be cremated.
This wasn't the first time something like this happened in the neighborhood. Last April, a steer escaped from the same slaughterhouse. Police sources said it slipped out of the same truck operated by the same driver. And in January, a cow also ran through the streets of Jamaica.
Margarite Sally said she witnessed the two most recent captures.
"The universe is telling me to become a vegetarian," she said. "I think that's what it's saying."
Sally told 1010 WINS' Al Jones that she was scolding her son for not doing his chores, but the boy had good reason.
"He said, 'it's the guys outside, they're wresting a bull.' And I was like, 'I have to see this myself, because that's the best excuse I've heard for not taking out the garbage,'" she said.
"A lot of cops coming through this way, all the policemen like jumping on the bull. I was like wow," her son said.
Police said when they first corned the bull it was able to get away because the responding officers didn't have a tranquilizer strong enough for such a large animal. When they cornered him the second time, they were able to sedate him using a pole syringe filled with a stronger drug.