The runaway cow: misadventure in Staines
Never mind the election, said Emma Guinness in The Independent. The story preoccupying many people this week was the tale of Beau Lucy, the runaway cow brutally apprehended by Surrey Police. The incident occurred last Friday after the ten-month-old animal was spotted roaming the streets of Staines-upon-Thames, having apparently escaped her enclosure by swimming across the river from Staines Moor. Police arrived at the scene and sought to capture her. When that failed, they resorted to ramming the calf with their 4x4 vehicle, knocking her an estimated 30ft down the road. As she struggled to her feet, they drove into her again, leaving her trapped under the car’s bumper. Footage of the incident went viral and provoked widespread outrage. James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, demanded an explanation from Surrey Police; the officer behind the wheel has been suspended pending an investigation.
What were the police thinking, asked The Times. A ten-month-old calf is “a sizeable beast, to be sure” but it’s hardly a “man-eater” requiring lethal force. If the officers had calmly followed the animal, doing nothing to scare it, they would surely have caught it before too long. Instead, they seem to have gone into “full killer-on-the-loose mode”. Beau Lucy’s owner is hoping that she has suffered no lasting damage (she is “limping, sulky and bruised”, he says), but the officers on the scene should have handled the incident with greater delicacy. “Panicky, shouty, American-style ‘shoot first ask questions later’ policing is not welcome here.”
Forgive me if I don’t get too upset about this story, said Simon Kelner in The i Paper. Yes, the footage was “horrible to watch”, but in the grand scheme of things, this highly unusual example of animal mistreatment ranks pretty low (one National Farmers Union official defended the police, saying they were “probably right” to hit the cow before it “sent a child flying”). The reality is that, through factory farming, we inflict far worse cruelty on countless chickens, pigs and cows every minute of every day – it just happens behind the scenes, where we can ignore it. The fuss over Beau Lucy’s misadventure is “a perfect exposition of our double standards when it comes to animals”.