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Cow Leads Cops On Chase After Escaping From Queens Slaughterhouse

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Now that's something you don't see every day.

A cow got loose in Queens, sending police officers on a wild chase.

As CBS2's Hazel Sanches reported, the animal escaped from a slaughterhouse in Jamaica early Thursday afternoon.

Dashcam video posted to Twitter showed the cow running through the intersection at 164th Street and Jamaica Avenue.

"I was so shocked when I saw the cow!" Charline Johnson said, "It's like the cow was running for his life."

Johnson was working in a booth when she saw him running into her parking garage on Archer Ave and 165th Street.

The bovine had bolted from the Jamaica-Archer Halal Live Poultry and Meat Market across the street from the garage.

Azan Kahn said the cow had been delivered from Upstate New York, and was being transferred from a trailer when he got loose.

"The trailer guy bring the cow to take him in the pen. I want to bring him in the pen. That's how escape, in the pen so we can't catch him. He just run away. That's it," Kahn said.

Several streets were closed down as police tried to safely capture the four legged escapee.

Cops finally cornered the cow back at the parking garage. Police reported no injuries.

Often times animal escapees are pardoned and end up on greener pastures, but no such luck for this courageous cow.

North Shore Animal League America released a statement Thursday night, advocating to save the animal's life by purchasing the cow. The Port Washington-based organization said they tried reaching out to the slaughterhouse, but their calls went unanswered.

"North Shore Animal League America, along with many others today, was moved by the passion for freedom shown by the cow that escaped from the Jamaica Archer Live Poultry & Meats Slaughterhouse," said Joanne Yohannan, Senior Vice President of Operations,  North Shore Animal League America. "We are desperately trying to reach someone at the facility but they will not take our calls so we can purchase that cow and place it in an animal sanctuary."

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals also called for the cow to be released and its life spared.

"PETA has confirmed that both Catskill Animal Sanctuary and New Jersey's Skylands Animal Sanctuary & Rescue stand ready to provide this cow with a peaceful home, and representatives of Skylands are on the way to Queens now in the hope of whisking the animal away to freedom," PETA Director of Communications Colleen O'Brien said in part in a statement. "PETA hopes the slaughterhouse will listen to the many compassionate New Yorkers who don't want to see this cow killed and agree to live and let live."

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