Community Corner

The Great Horse Escape: Tacoma PD Help Wrangle 10 Loose Equines

McKinley Avenue had to be briefly closed to traffic Wednesday as officers tracked down the escaped horses.

Police officers attempt to box in an escaped horse. All 10 horses have since been safely returned home.
Police officers attempt to box in an escaped horse. All 10 horses have since been safely returned home. (Tacoma Police Department)

TACOMA, WA — An unusual road closure early Wednesday morning in Tacoma as a pack of loose horses stampeded down McKinley Avenue.

According to the Tacoma Police Department, someone cut a chain lock securing a local pasture sometime overnight or early Wednesday. With the gate wide open, 10 horses saw their chance to escape, and spent a bit of their morning gallivanting around the 7600 block of McKinley Avenue, in Tacoma's South End Neighborhood.

The road was closed, and Tacoma Police officers were dispatched to help rustle up the escaped equines. To wrangle the beasts, the horse's owners enticed them home with buckets of grain while officers acted as "mobile fencing" to slowly funnel them back inside their pasture.

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No one — including the horses — was harmed during the great horse escape, and McKinley Avenue has since been reopened to traffic.

As for who cut the chain lock and set the horses free in the first place, that remains under investigation.

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