[FEL-L] Police shoot cougar in Chicago alley

Wed Apr 16 22:56:52 CDT 2008

"Sean Bell, age 23, was shot and killed by police in a hail of bullets last night as he was leaving his bachelor party in Queens, just hours before his wedding."
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2006/11/26/152436/97

When police found it necessary to shoot this unarmed man some 17 times, what chance would a loose cougar have ? Interesting how they elaborated on how necessary and justified it was to kill this animal.

--- On Wed, 4/16/08, Gary Breuckman <puma at catbox.com> wrote:

> From: Gary Breuckman <puma at catbox.com>
> Subject: [FEL-L] Police shoot cougar in Chicago alley
> To: felines-l at catbox.com
> Date: Wednesday, April 16, 2008, 6:20 PM
> Cops kill cougar on North Side
> Neighborhood stunned as animal cornered, shot in back alley
> By Jeremy Manier and Tina Shah | Tribune reporters
> April 15, 2008
> 
> A cougar ran loose in Chicago on Monday for the first time
> since the
> city's founding in the 19th Century. But by day's
> end, the animal lay
> dead in a back alley on the North Side, shot by police who
> said they
> feared it was turning to attack.
> 
> No one knew where the 150-pound cat came from, though on
> Saturday
> Wilmette police had received four reports of a cougar
> roaming that
> suburb, roughly 15 miles from the site of Monday's
> shooting.
> 
> Whatever its origin, the 5-foot-long cougar's unlikely
> journey ended
> in the Roscoe Village neighborhood, where residents
> reported
> sightings throughout the day to the Chicago Commission on
> Animal Care
> and Control. Resident Ben Greene said police cornered the
> cougar
> shortly before 6 p.m. in his side yard on the 3400 block of
> North
> Hoyne Avenue.
> 
> Greene said he heard a volley of gunfire as he was bathing
> his
> 10-month-old son. His wife, Kate, ran upstairs screaming
> with their
> 3-year-old son, and they all took cover in a back room.
> 
> "At first, I'm thinking there's a gun battle
> in the street," said
> Greene, who owns a trucking company.
> 
> As the shots stopped, Greene heard the police yelling,
> "We got him!
> We got him!" He ventured downstairs and moved on his
> knees to the
> front door, where he saw police on his lawn. The officers
> had shot
> holes in an air conditioning unit on the side of
> Greene's house while
> aiming for the tan cougar, which died in the alley near
> Greene's
> garage.
> 
> Chicago Police Capt. Mike Ryan said the cougar tried to
> attack the
> officers when they tried to contain it. Police said they
> could not
> tranquilize the animal because police officers typically do
> not carry
> tranquilizer guns. Police said no one, including officers,
> was hurt
> and they did not know the cougar's gender.
> 
> "It was turning on the officers," Ryan said.
> "There was no way to
> take it into custody."
> 
> Normally reclusive creatures, most cougars retreated to
> habitats in
> the Rocky Mountains and Black Hills early in American
> history. But
> some researchers believe overcrowding in recent years has
> driven the
> animals back east.
> 
> Two cougars have been killed in Illinois in the last
> decade. In 2000,
> a train struck and killed one in Randolph County in
> southern
> Illinois, and in 2004 a bow hunter killed a cougar in
> Mercer County
> in western Illinois.
> 
> But in the previous century, there had been no confirmed
> sightings in
> Illinois of a cougar, which is also known as a puma,
> mountain lion or
> panther. The last known appearance of the animal was in
> 1864 at the
> southern end of the state.
> 
> The Wilmette and Chicago sightings capped a flurry of
> recent cougar
> activity in the area, though no one knows if that was all
> the same
> animal. Several people reported seeing a cougar at the end
> of March
> in North Chicago, about 20 miles north of Wilmette. A
> Wisconsin
> trapper came face to face with a cougar in January, about
> 25 miles
> from the Illinois border.
> 
> That trapper said the cat bounded away 12 feet at a leap.
> 
> Starting early Monday, frightened Roscoe Village residents
> began
> calling police with reports of a cougar which was bounding
> over high
> fences in the neighborhood. Greene said his wife got an
> e-mail alert
> about the animal Monday morning through a neighborhood
> watch list.
> 
> Frank Hirschmann, 50, of the 3500 block of North Seeley
> Avenue saw
> the animal pass by his home.
> 
> "I was sitting on the porch, and all of a sudden he
> crossed the
> street, and hurdled a 6-foot fence like nothing,"
> Hirschmann said. He
> said he then ran into his house and watched police chase
> the cougar
> on foot.
> 
> Animal control officials were not sure if the cougar was
> wild or an
> escaped pet, though they noted that it is illegal to keep
> the animals
> as pets. It's unclear how a cougar could have traveled
> south into
> Chicago from Wilmette, but the areas are connected by a
> Metra train
> route, on which the cougar could have walked, and a
> waterway.
> 
> Ben Greene's neighbor, Romeo Dorazio, had just gotten
> home from
> dinner when he heard about 10 gunshots.
> 
> "I knew it was really nearby. I walked to the window
> and saw a
> cougar," Dorazio said. "It was the freakiest
> thing I ever saw."
> 
> James Reynolds was sitting in his living room when he heard
> what
> seemed like "fireworks popping."
> 
> The 45-year-old went out in his back yard and saw a cougar
> attempting
> to jump from his neighbor's fence to his. He knew it
> was a cougar
> because he had seen it on the Discovery Channel, he said.
> 
> Officers shouted for him to go inside his house, and he saw
> them kill
> the cougar in about 10 shots.
> 
> A spokesman for the Illinois Department of Natural
> Resources said
> Monday that the state's current wildlife code does not
> protect
> cougars because they are not considered a normal part of
> the
> ecosystem here. The official said the only state
> regulations that
> might come into play would be gun ordinances, but because
> police did
> the shooting that issue is moot. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife
> Service
> lists the Eastern cougar as endangered. But police could
> not confirm
> whether the cougar shot Monday was an Eastern cougar.
> 
> Greene said he agreed with the police decision to kill the
> cougar.
> 
> "As far as I witnessed, they did a pretty good
> job," Greene said.
> "Hypothetically, if there were kids in the yard and
> the cougar jumps
> in, what would the cougar have done?"
> 
> Tribune reporter Jeremy Gorner contributed to this report.
> 
> jmanier at tribune.com
> 
> tshah at tribune.com
> 
> 
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