Each day that Cpl. Thomas Keisler reports to work at the sheriff’s office in St. Johns County, Fla., there is a chance he’ll come face to face with an animal on the road. In his 25 years of working in a county with farmland and rural areas, he’s seen officers encounter horses, goats, pigs, cows, turkeys and ducks.
But last Friday brought a new creature to his patch: a runaway emu.
The corporal was sent to wrangle one bobbing along a county road.
“It’s certainly different than coming across a horse or a cow because it was literally like trying to restrain a miniature velociraptor,” Corporal Keisler said in a phone interview on Thursday.
When he got the call about the loose bird, he underestimated what it would take to get the situation under control.
Agricultural deputies usually respond to that type of call, he said, but they were in training when the emu went on the road. “I figured I can handle something like this oversized turkey,” he said.
How hard could it be, after all, to grab a large and flightless bird? According to body-camera footage, which was released by the sheriff’s office on Wednesday, considerably harder than expected.
Corporal Keisler and the emu, named Tina, would ultimately spend about 45 minutes together. The footage shows only about two minutes of their entanglement, which appears mutually frustrating.
At first, Tina walks at an unhurried pace along the county road as the corporal tries to get her to come toward him. Corporal Keisler even sounds upbeat, but as the video continues, the occasional deep sigh is audible. Tina just keeps sauntering away. At one point, Corporal Keisler has his hands on Tina. She runs away.
An emu like Tina, who had escaped from a farm, is not so easy to catch. Though emus can’t fly with their tiny, useless wings, they have powerful legs and will use their heavy feet to strike, according to the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. Emus are the second-largest bird in the world, after ostriches, and can be from 4.9 to 6.2 feet tall and weigh from 66 to 121 pounds. Adult female emus are larger and heavier than males.
Corporal Keisler said that his past experience with animals had proved to be pretty useless in apprehending Tina. “We don’t get emu combat training and restraining for some reason, or I’ve never had that,” he said. “Maybe I missed that day of training.”
Toward the end of their battle, Corporal Keisler put handcuffs on Tina’s legs because she had ripped holes in his uniform and he needed to stop her from kicking him. “That was really the only option that I had because she had cornered herself in an area that was going to be very difficult to bring her out,” he said.
At that point, Tina’s owner knew her bird was on the loose and was able to meet the corporal and the bird under arrest. The sheriff’s office did not say where the bird is usually housed.
Tina calmed down immediately when she was reunited with her owner, the corporal said. “The owner brought her some food, and it was the most gentle creature I’ve seen,” he said, “but it’s not what it showed me.”
Corporal Keisler was happy that the owner was there, too, and said of Tina, “I think we were both kind of over each other at that point.”
Amanda Holpuch covers breaking news and other topics.
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