Well, that’s not something you see every day.
Local police in Ohio were forced to put down a zebra — yes, a zebra — Sunday after it almost tore a man’s arm right off his body as it attacked him on his own property. I guess this means we’ve been lied to by Fruit Stripes gum and the Madagascar movies for years now about the gentle, fun-loving nature of the zebra. I’m shook.
According to the Daily Wire, deputies from Pickaway County Sheriff’s Office got a call from Ronald Clifton, 72, at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, after he reporting that he was attacked by the animal.
The operator, totally shocked by the report asked Clifton, “You got attacked by a what?!?!”
“Oh hell yes, I think he tore my arm off … send a chopper,” Clifton replied. “Come before it gets me again!”
"*" indicates required fields
What do you say to that? Can you imagine all of the thoughts running through the operator’s mind. I probably would have thought it was a joke at first. Someone doing a crank call for a stupid TikTok video or something.
“When deputies arrived at the scene they discovered a herd of zebras. One of the deputies parked his vehicle in between the victim and the zebra,” the report continued.
So wait. Hold up. This man didn’t just one a zebra, but an entire herd? What the hell is going on in Ohio?
“One of the zebra actually went up to our deputy, the first one that was on scene, and poked his head towards the driver’s side of his car and his window,” Pickaway County Sheriff’s Lt. Jonathan Strawser recounted concerning the incident. “The deputy had to hit the air horn to get the zebra to go away.”
While emergency responders started to work on Clifton, deputies drew shotguns and watched the pissed off, aggressive zebra walking around close by.
Video footage shows the zebra start to mosey on toward one of the deputies, who issued the zebra a warning — trying not to bust my gut laughing here — and when the zebra refused to heed the deputy, he opened fire on it from 15-20 feet away. It passed across the rainbow bridge just mere feet away from the officer.
#ZebraLivesMatter.
“I had to make a decision,” Sgt. Stacey Eitel goes on to say in the clip. “I put a slug right between its eyes.”
I know this was a serious situation, but man, if you can make it all the way through this without passing out from laughing, you’re a stronger person than me. Who says, “I put a slug right between its eyes,” in a news report about shooting a zebra? Is this real? Is it possible this whole thing is just some sort of massive joke?
Nope. It’s for real.
Later on in the video, Eitel said, “I ain’t going to let no one else get hurt. It wasn’t going to stop. It kept coming.”
“ABC News reported that Eitel said in his report that the male zebra that he had to kill was ‘protective of about five or six female zebras that were in the field at this location upon our arrival,'” the Daily Wire said.
An Ohio man, whose arm was nearly bitten off by a zebra he owned, called 911 to request medical help on his property on Sunday. https://t.co/qPt1QRzxI9 pic.twitter.com/1S4sfpJasu
— Enquirer (@Enquirer) March 15, 2023
Clifton was rushed to a hospital where his family has stated that he’s not going to lose the arm and will make a full recovery.
“A local ABC News affiliate reported that zebras are allowed to be pets in Ohio and thus are not likely to be removed from the property,” the report concluded.
