Runaway Bull Terrorizes Queens for Hours

A runaway bull who escaped a slaughterhouse at 10 a.m. this morning was apprehended and killed by police this afternoon following a dramatic chase through Queens. And no, it wasn't Kevin James.

New Yorkers and Twitter on-lookers alike were stunned by the strange, but not entirely unheard-of statistical anomaly. "We were on our way to a funeral and just as I got in the car, we saw police. I said, 'Oh shit, there's a bull!'" Dorothy Bailey, 68, told DNAInfo.

NYPD called to the scene

The boys in blue had some difficulty apprehending the bull, which led them on a dramatic chase along the streets of Jamaica, Queens. It trotted along streets, between cars, and into playgrounds and backyards with a dogged determination to evade its pursuers. (It is actually the third time in 14 months that this has happened, following the sagas of Freddie in January 2016 and Frank in April 2016.)

An agile gait

Attempts to corral or corner the bull with cars seemed to completely fall apart. As one woman who grew up in rural Pennsylvania astutely pointed out to Thrillist: "You cannot corral a cow with a car. That is not a thing that works."

Capture and death

The bull was brought down by officers armed with tranquilizer guns sometime around 12:15 p.m. this afternoon. Police had intended to pardon the cow from its slaughterhouse fate and bring the animal into ASPCA custody to eventually go to an animal shelter. Unfortunately, it did not survive the excitement and the amount of tranquilizer darts used.

The bull was survived by Twitter users, residents of New York, and its bovine brethren everywhere. "It's really depressing," said Alex Garofalo, an editor at Thrillist. "He was an American hero."

Eric Vilas-Boas is a writer and editor at Thrillist. Follow him @e_vb_.