COLORADO SPRINGS —When a bison was reported wandering around the city’s west side Tuesday night, Colorado Springs police officers did what they are trained to do. They called in the SWAT team.
The animal had escaped from G&C Co. on 21st Street and had made its way to nearby Thorndale Park. That’s where Officer John Havenar, a SWAT sniper, shot and killed the animal with a single shot from his high-powered rifle.
Perhaps SWAT assistance for an animal trying to escape the dinner plate seems a bit of overkill. But after what west-siders call the “great bison massacre” of 2005, the reaction — now police protocol — makes sense.
Five bison — each weighing 850 to 950 pounds — escaped the G&C packing plant about 11:30 a.m. on May 9, 2005, when a truck driver improperly lined up his trailer with a loading chute, according to a Gazette article. They ran into a nearby yard and, when one started to charge, police opened fire.
Unfortunately, the .223-caliber bullets police used weren’t powerful enough. Some of the bison were shot several times in the head and “didn’t even flinch,” police Lt. Larry Laxson told The Gazette. Police continued to shoot, and several nearby houses were damaged.
Karl Remisch, who was visiting a friend, told the Gazette he was scared. “I thought they went overboard and I thought my life was in danger,” he said. “They just opened up and it sounded like World War II.”
An investigation later showed police fired 83 bullets to kill all five bison.
Janis Hahn remembers it well. These days it’s the source of jokes, but it wasn’t back then, she said. “They hit houses, they hit cars and so, no one was hurt, but there was potential for collateral damage,” she said.
So why weren’t the animals tranquilized? Police didn’t have the tranquilizers to use on the bison, and the Colorado Division of Wildlife told officers that its employees weren’t allowed to use tranquilizers on livestock.
