Column: A bird in the pants is worth…

The first call I took as a brand new patrol officer (it was during the Reagan administration if that gives you some context) was a horse that had gotten loose and was walking down the freeway. I had no idea what I was doing, but I somehow convinced him to take an off-ramp. He did not use his turn signal.

The police department is the municipal service, along with the fire department, that usually gets called when people don’t know who else to call. I remember being sent to a complaint from a suburban homeowner that there was a raccoon in his backyard. Apparently the raccoon had not gotten the memo that nature was not allowed on the property. Police K-9 officers actually spend their whole work day with their dog, and we care about animals as much as anyone. This week I wanted to share a few stories about animals that illustrate the point.

Several weeks ago, we received a call from a pet store in Kent, reporting a shoplifted bird. Officer Stewart stopped at the store and spoke to the owner, while another officer searched the area for the suspect and vehicle. Rather than paraphrase, I include this portion of the police report exactly as it is written, because any less would lead you to believe I was making it up:

“I spoke to the owner, who said a white male, in his 40s, heavy build, entered the store. The man went over to a bird cage and fiddled with the locked door. The man opened the cage door and grabbed the bird. The owner saw the man stuff the bird down the front of his pants.”

The report goes on and the plot thickens: “The owner confronted the man, saying “you can’t do that?” The man looked up and said, ‘Do what?” The owner said, “Stick the bird down your pants!” The man said, “What bird?” During this conversation, the owner said he could very clearly hear the bird squawking inside the man’s pants. The man ran from the store and jumped in a van, and drove south.

It gets weirder, believe it or not. The officer with the description of the man, van and license plate, broadcasted it for other officers to check. As he walked toward his squad car, the officer saw the same van, same plate, and same guy driving slowly past. The look on the man’s face was distinct – as Scooby Doo used to say, “Rut-Roh”.

The man fled in his van, and Officer Stewart made the rational and correct decision not to pursue someone in a vehicle over a bird in the pants. Detectives located him later at his home, and he was arrested and charged with theft and fleeing police. The bird was safe and sound in a cage in the home, and was returned to the store.

Last summer, officers were called, along with the fire department, to an apartment for a boa constrictor wrapped around a young woman. The family decided it would make a good pet, until the snake wrapped itself around one of the family and started constricting, which I guess is why they gave it that name. This was very serious, because that’s how boa constrictors kill their prey. The woman was starting to struggle to breathe. In this emergency situation, the officer on the scene made the executive decision to use a taser to see if it would cause the snake to release its grip. We learned that a standard police-issue taser will, in fact, cause a 10-foot boa to immediately release and fall off. As soon as the taser was removed, the snake was perfectly fine and no worse for wear. The family reconsidered having a boa as a pet. A good example of why wild animals probably should not be household pets.

Just last week, officers were called to an area off of Lake Fenwick Road. A homeowner with larger acreage had hired one of those people who bring out dozens of goats to eat the foliage. Apparently the supervision had left for lunch, and the goats had begun wandering into the roadway. Officers contacted the company and the man (would he be a goat-herder?) showed up quickly with his three-legged border collie named John. John the dog shook his head at the goats as if to say, “can’t I leave you people alone for 10 minutes?” and went to work corralling the errant goats. We learned that a three-legged border collie can move goats better than any group of humans. Officers profusely thanked John and cleared the call.