A bull that got loose in Queens Tuesday morning died shortly after it was captured, police said.
The runaway bull, who escaped from a slaughterhouse, was spotted near the corner of Archer Avenue and Sutphin Boulevard at about 10:20 a.m.
The animal was cornered just more than an hour later in the yard of a home on Marsden Street in South Jamaica, but then ran again. It was finally corralled and tranquilized in the backyard of a home at 115-43 158th St. around 12:30 p.m., police said. That’s about 1.7 miles from the slaughterhouse.
Michael Smith, 25, said he realized something was out of the ordinary when he heard a helicopter overhead.
“Then they cornered it,” he said. “They should just leave the bull alone.”
Pat Dillahunt, 70, lives next door to where the bull was captured.
“I saw the bull come down the street; my husband was putting the garbage out. I said, ‘you better come inside,’” she recalled. “They blocked him, so he ran into the backyard. I saw the tranquilizer things stick in him.”
The bull was hit with a tranquilizer dart called Ketaset, which was administered by the Emergency Services Unit, as well as a poll syringe (1cc of Xylazine) from the Mounted Unit, a law enforcement source said.
Dillahunt said she watched from the back window of her home as police dragged the bull down the driveway and into a truck.
The freedom-seeking bull was taken to an Animal Care Centers of NYC facility on Linden Boulevard in Brooklyn. Police said it died around 1:30 p.m.
The animal will now be brought to a facility in West Babylon for cremation, police said.
“If there’s a slaughterhouse in the area I wouldn’t be surprised if another one makes a break for it,” Smith said.
This wouldn’t be the first time a large animal has gotten loose in the city.
In January 2016, a black and white cow escaped from a slaughterhouse in Queens and then was subsequently rescued by the Skylands Animal Sanctuary and Rescue in Wantage, New Jersey.
Marguerite Salley, who lives across the street from where the bull was captured Tuesday afternoon, also encountered the cow that got loose in January 2016. She said the cow, which was later renamed Freddie, ran right by her car while she was at work.
This time around, Salley said her son was the one to alert her about the bull.
“I told my son to take out the trash,” said Salley, who declined to give her age. “He said, ‘the cops are outside wrestling a bull.’ I thought he was lying.”
Salley added that it’s “definitely a little weird” that cows can be roaming around the city.
“This is the second time this has happened to me,” she said. “I don’t know if these cows are following me so they can get free and go to a sanctuary.”
In April 2016, comedian Jon Stewart and his wife, Tracey, picked up a cow that had escaped a truck that was to take it to a Queens slaughterhouse.
With Lauren Cook
