8 rodeo bulls escape mall pen and trample through Mass. residents’ yards — with 1 still on the loose
It’s the running of the bulls — right through your backyard!
The East Coast briefly looked like the Wild West on Sunday afternoon when eight bulls escaped a rodeo pen in a Massachusetts mall parking lot, miraculously injuring none — but one remains on the lam.
A shocking video shows the moment a herd of bulls charged past the fencing from a rodeo at the Emerald Square Mall.
They rushed through the crowded parking lot, colliding with a tent before wandering towards U.S. Highway 1. The wild animals then veered off towards the woods, where the first of the eight escapees was quickly caught.
“Community members should exercise extreme caution and not approach any bulls,” the North Attleboro Fire Department said in a warning issued to the community Sunday.
North Attleboro Fire and Police, along with Massachusetts Environmental Police, searched for the rest of the herd with the help of New England Rodeo members in Norton and members from the rodeo at the mall.
The herd made its way through the woods and toward residential parts of Attleboro, giving some locals an unexpected — and unwelcome — visit to their yards.
Another six bulls trapped themselves behind a fence at a home in Attleboro at around 4:30 p.m. They were all steered into a trailer without a hitch, but that still left one bull on the run.
“As soon as I stepped out and I looked out there, I said those aren’t horses, those are literally bulls and ‘oh my god’,” Attleboro resident Chris Mooney told NBC Connecticut.
“Two of them were laying down and another was budging the fence trying to get out, and the other ones were just sitting there.”
Others were sympathetic towards the plight of the cattle but were grateful to see them carted out of their neighborhoods without being harmed.
“At first I just felt bad for the bulls. I’m like – they escaped for a reason,” Gee Sounthonevat, a neighbor of the homeowner who accidentally captured six of the bulls, told NBC Connecticut.
First responders are still searching for the lone missing bull. The Festival Rodeo that the eight escaped from, which was a single-day event, was shut down and the cause of the jailbreak is under investigation.