A deer in the dorm

Okay... Have you ever heard of a deer being in the dorm? me neither. but it happened sunday at my school. i go to the university if illinois and it was in our paper today. consider it the talk of all dorm inhabitants. i usually don't write about stuff like this, but this just is amazing.

Appatrently, a deer broke through a window in the cafeteria of Garner Hall. This deer attempted to jump through yet another window, because one wasn't enough. It broke this second window, and fatally wounded itself on the broken glass.

By the time the cops arrived, fifteen minutes after 911 was called, they found that this deer had almost severed one of its front legs and lost most of its blood. This poor deer bled all over the carpet, walls, and curtains. It was a massacre.

But, as if all of this tragedy isn't bad enough, listen to how the cops handled the situation. (this is directly out of the paper.) "The police euthanized the deer with a .45-caliber pistol because of the severity of the wounds, as well as to contain further damage to property and to reduce risk of bystanders." In an earlier paragraph of the article it said, "police euthanized the deer and removed it for processing the meat."

As if the words weren't quite enough for all of us, a picture ON THE FRONT PAGE accompanies this. It shows a cop filling out papers in this lounge, and the deer is laying dead in the background. It shows tables and chairs flung all over the place, and blood scattered everywhere.

i cannot believe that people actually feel the need to publish this kind of stuff. this is horrible.

now, i am sure i will probably get negative points for posting this one, but i just wanted to let everyone know what kind of people are in this world.

Because it is so random that a deer jumps through the window of a dorm, police actually felt the need to save the meat so they can eat it later? and even worse, felt the need to publish that in the school paper?

I know i am probably not doing anything too different, but, does anyone else agree that this is disgusting? are reporters at the point where they will do anything for a story, or what?

Have you ever tried to bury a deer? It costs money. Freshly dead animal is cheaper (and tastier!) to eat than to bury. I suspect you may have never lived in the country, but (in rural michigan) when you hit a deer the police officer always asks you if you plan on taking the deer home for your own use. Otherwise they have to take care of it (sometimes they don't, and it attracts other wild animals and smells pretty bad for weeks, nevermind that parts of it get dragged back out into the road to be pulverized.)

While the idea may seem repugnant to you, it is likely due to your own environment and how you were brought up. I personally don't hunt, and cleaning a carcass is more work than I'd want (so I wouldn't take it myself, but I know who to call who would take any deer I hit...), but it is no less repugnant to me than knowing that cows are often killed with what essentially amounts to a modified nail gun. Police don't generally carry stuff for killing animals (other than guns) and are often taught the proper way to 'euthanize' an animal which is in danger of others, or is in extreme pain and alarm. To prolong that just to wait for animal control services to come along would be disgusting.

The newspaper on the other hand was catering to its readers, and hey, if they didn't like seeing that stuff, then they probably wouldn't have printed it.

So if you were in the officer's shoes, what would you have done? Are there ways you think you could improve such a situation?

If this is the kind of thing that outrages PJ, methinks someone needs a hobby.

First, what are the cops supposed to do with a dead deer who's run amok in a college dormitory? Give him a good Christian burial and a posthumous medal of valor? I mean these critters are still edible and quite delicious, aren't they? Is there any possible reason why a dead deer should not be eaten, if at all possible? It's not like it's a little puppy or a kitty, right? It is still legal to eat venison in every nation in the world, oy?

Second, let's say you're a reporter working at a newspaper, and you hear that a wild (and probably criminally insane) deer has crashed through a window in a college dormitory, run amok, smashed up a bunch of furniture, gone on a panty raid, then crashed into another window, chopped off its own legs, and splattered its own blood and gore over half the lobby in, more than likely, a bizarre suicide pact with some young doe. What is your reaction going to be? Run down, take some photos, and run a story about this extremely public and newsworthy event? Or run out and look for pictures of cute bunnies, capitalistic toddlers running lemonade stands, and politicians signing meaningless proclamations? Heaven forfend that we should have to hear about bad news...