You have to ponder these things in this business sometimes, and last night was one of those times.
In one of those quiet, cold nights built for Flash Alerts we took note of bursts of activity up and down the 24/680 Corridor and tried to keep up as anxious residents, nighthawk limousine operators and other just plain folk dialed us up with the perennial question: “What the hell is going on at XYZ?“
You might have heard the prolonged wail of sirens, the chop chop chop of a police helicopter over your house, maybe even a defiant moo from an inbound, 1,500-pound cow unafraid of cars or cops.
We’ll take that last one first. Around 11 p.m. or so, darkness fully in place and the usual nocturnal nuttiness set to kick off, deputies working to keep us humans driving between the white lines and within the confines of civil behavior took note of an errant cow outside its assigned pasture and moving down Willow Pass Road towards Concord and the bright lights of the Big City.
Local law enforcement, no stranger to occasional cattle-wrangling in our semi-rural landscape, kept the slo-mover in sight and requested a call be made to the bovine’s owner/rancher – which must have pleased him/her to no end given the hour.
The Rancher threw a jacket and some jeans on over their pajamas (we’re visualizing that part and really don’t know what they were wearing, of course) and put the giddyup to their effort to reach the scene and take the wandering bovine under tow.
Only by that time the critter had reached a decision and started a deliberate approach down Willow Pass Road at Avila, putting herself and her human co-inhabitants in potential jeopardy and forcing a deputy to take action in an attempt to steer her back to greener pastures until The Rancher could arrive.
Unfortunately, cow and deputy made contact, the SUV-sized bovine winning the contest and sending the deputy to the hospital with unspecified injuries as other officers established a perimeter around the critter and The Rancher finally arrived to take her in tow.
We understand she has been booked for evading police, resisting, and assault on a peace officer. Her Rancher is expected to plead her case in court.
Having had livestock stand on us a time or two we don’t mean to make light of this in any way and hope the officer is able to recover swiftly and that Rancher is able to re-string his/her fence line this morning. But the incident established the pace for the rest of our Tuesday evening, with human-types taking their cue and acting up in Danville and again in Concord (lengthy pursuit, foot chase, neighborhood search, dog bite, arrest made, gun found).
The encounter reminded us of another we caught wind of in Alameda County one day a couple of centuries ago, a deputy motoring along a back road near Livermore when he was viciously attacked by a Turkey Vulture – which crashed through his windshield, brought his vehicle to an abrupt halt, and left him bruised and lacerated by the side of the road.
We don’t like to see these things happen to local wildlife or human people but appropriate services were held for the bird and the deputy recovered, his colleagues presenting him with a specially-designed buzzard-shaped “Wound Badge,” which he wore on his ribbon bar for years afterward – the unknowing peering curiously at the unique gold-plated device whenever he pinned it to his uniform.
We’re not sure how they go about these things in CoCo County but we would hope the colleagues of the deputy injured last night would pass the hat and hopefully come up with an appropriate line of duty injury award for their peer, perhaps fashioned in the shape of a smug bovine with a satisfied look on her face.
If you guys do, send us a picture of the presentation ceremony.
Don’t cowboys sleep in their red long johns?
We sure hope so, otherwise that bit of visualization is waaay off the mark!
Ha! As a kid riding my bike to work. I worked on a horse ranch. I came to the first turn just out of town a CHP officer was out of his car waving his hands around like a bad case of jumping jacks. I was 14yrs old and he starts yelling at me to get lost. There was a really big beautiful Brahma Bull that got out of his paddock via open gate that was only a few feet away. Mr Brahma was happy eating grass.
I told the officer that waving his arms and yelling at 2000lbs of Bull was unwise. CHP officer says kid you have any ideas? I laughed, said that I used the bull bars on our dodge to move bulls before. I pointed at the bull bars on his cruiser and asked him if he knew why they were called bull bars? I pointed at the gate and told him to encourage Mr Brahma to go through the gate and I’d close it.
Pretty sure I saved a CHP officer that day. Somewhere a theres a retired officer who probably has a great story about bull bars and Brahma bulls.