It was police moo-tality.
A California police officer’s attempt to moo-ve a cow off the highway backfired after the 2,000-pound bovine wheeled around and charged him, as seen in a shocking video. The incident was chronicled in a Dec. 23 Facebook post by the California Highway Patrol’s Susanville division.
“Our Officer Pratt caught on camera one of the many dangers we face on a daily basis here in rural northeastern California,” read the account of the incident, which occurred in Susanville, Lassen County earlier this month.
Officer Brandon Pratt had been trying to shoo the “meat locomotive” off the freeway when it decided “it had enough of being told what to do,” authorities said.
In the accompanying footage, captured on the impromptu cattle wrangler’s dashboard, the one-ton beast can be seen charging at the petrified officer from the roadside as he tries to flee. The crazed grazer then appears to ram the poor cop with its head, whereupon both disappear off-screen. A little while later, Officer Pratt reappears on camera and breathes a sigh of relief.
“The cow was pretty mad,” Bruce Thuelchassaigne, a spokesperson for CHP’s Susanville office, told the Los Angeles Times. “It put its head down and went to throw him up in the air.”
He added that Ferdinand dealt a “glancing blow” to the officer’s right shoulder.
Thankfully, Pratt escaped the attack relatively unscathed, per the Facebook post, which colleagues have attributed to the bulletproof vest he was wearing.
“Remember to always buckle up, never drink and drive and call CHP to handle those pesky cows that are outside their fences,” the Facebook post concluded.
Unfortunately, heifers wandering onto the highway is a scourge in the region, where cattle ranching is one of their main industries. According to Thuelchassaigne, officers regularly receive four or five cow calls a week.
And while cattle may seem tame, these 1,000- to 2,000-pound herd beasts can pose a serious threat to both cars and people.
Officials in Corsica, Italy closed down beaches in August after unusually aggressive cows started goring tourists. Meanwhile, in February an enraged bovine redefined “having a cow” after stampeding through a Colombian hospital as petrified patients fled for their lives.