News Release:
On May 09, 2023, a suspect, later identified as Joshua Russell Minton, age 34, of Millers Creek, NC, fled from Boone Police Officers during a traffic stop. The suspect led Boone police and deputies of the Watauga County Sheriff’s Office in a chase. The suspect abandoned his vehicle in the area of U.S. Hwy. 421 and U.S. Hwy. 221 in Deep Gap and fled into an undeveloped area. Due to the suspect’s fast and reckless driving, our officers were not close enough to see exactly where the suspect ran.
As officers began to search the area, they received some unexpected, but welcomed assistance from some local cows. Apparently, cows do not want suspected criminals loitering in their pasture and quickly assisted our officers by leading them directly to where the suspect was hiding. The cows communicated with the officers as best they could and finally just had the officers follow them to the suspect’s location.
In addition to thanking our officers and deputies for putting themselves in harm’s way, obviously, we want to express our gratitude to the cows for their assistance. This opens up all kinds of questions as to the bovines’ role in crime fighting. Honestly, it is something that we have not considered before now. As we examine the obvious next steps of incorporating a Bovine Tracking Unit into our department’s law enforcement capabilities, there are many factors that we will have to consider:
♦ How adaptable are cows to a variety of police work or can they just find hiding suspects?
♦ Are cows more cost effective than K-9 dogs?
♦ How will we transport cows to the scenes and is this compatible with the Town’s sustainability goals in terms of types of vehicles needed [since], obviously, there are methane issues?
♦ Cost of training, vet care, ballistic vests, etc.?
We at the Boone Police Department are always looking for better ways to serve our community. We may be a small town but, we are a progressive, forward thinking law enforcement agency. For rural law enforcement, we want to be the tip of the spear.
I realize that September 11 is usually reserved for the remembrance of 9/11 but, that seems to be all over the news as it is. There are other things that have happened on September 11. ~Vic
Carla was the most intense hurricane to make landfall on the Texas coast in the 20th century and second in recorded history only to the Indianola hurricane of 1886. Carla was the last of 6 hurricanes to make landfall on the Texas coast as a Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale, with sustained winds stronger than 130 mph, in the 20th century. Carla ranks as the 9th most intense hurricane to affect the United States since 1851.
Carla made landfall on the afternoon of the 11th on the northeast part of Matagorda Island as a strong Category 4 hurricane […]. The eye of Carla moved across Port O’Connor and Port Lavaca and, then, inland just east of Victoria. Carla weakened to a tropical storm on the morning of the 12th just east of Austin.
Carla was an extremely large hurricane with devastating effects from the winds and storm surge […]. The extreme tides inundated downtown Port Lavaca with 2 feet of flood water and displaced fishing boats and tug boats on Highway 35. With the slow movement of Carla, the hurricane pushed a storm surge of 22 feet above mean sea level at the head of Lavaca Bay in Port Lavaca. This is the highest storm surge in Texas hurricane history.
[Little-known] newsman Dan Rather reported live from the second floor of a building in Texas City during the storm, an act that would be imitated by later reporters. This marked the first live television broadcast of a hurricane. Rather also alerted the public of the size of Carla in a way that “literally changed the way the world sees hurricanes”, according to a fellow reporter. Broadcasting live at the Weather Bureau Office in Galveston, Rather asked a meteorologist to draw an outline of the Gulf of Mexico on a transparent sheet of plastic. He then held the map over the black and white radar screen, which put the size of Carla into perspective, saying that Carla was the size of the Gulf of Mexico. CBS was so impressed with Rather’s work that he was offered the position of correspondent.
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