Escaped Emu Leads Cops On A 20-Mile Chase Through Town
Thankfully, no emu arrests were made.
Police in Harriman, Tennessee, just experienced a once-in-a-lifetime chase they’ll be talking about for years to come. The perp in question: MeeMoo the emu.
The large bird led police on a low-speed chase through town after he was “spooked” by a nearby logging crew and jumped over his enclosure’s 7-foot-tall fence.
MeeMoo’s owner, Harry McKinney, tried to catch up to him after the escape but soon lost sight of the speedy bird. So, he turned to social media to alert his community that MeeMoo was on the loose — and law enforcement soon got involved.
“Immediately we were flooded with private messages with, you know, ‘Hey, your emu is in my backyard,' and then we got all of these videos,” McKinney told local news outlet WATE.
MeeMoo was running at about 40 miles per hour during some parts of the chase, and police reportedly followed him for about 20 miles. By the end of the saga, MeeMoo had four police cruisers on his tail.
“We were terrified that he would get hit by a car and somebody would hit him with a tranquilizer dart, that he would hurt himself in the chase,” McKinney said, adding that he was keeping track of MeeMoo’s whereabouts by listening to police dispatch radio.
Luckily, McKinney was able to wrangle MeeMoo in the backyard of a home in Roane County.
He shared a photo of himself and MeeMoo both smiling when the chase finally came to an end and they were headed back home.
Residents of Harriman got quite a show that day, with another person on Facebook writing that this was probably the longest police chase the small town has ever experienced.
McKinney said that everyone “got their own private video” of the police chase of the century and that he’s thankful for the community’s help and support in getting MeeMoo back home safe and sound. And to prevent any more Emu-related incidents, MeeMoo's fence is getting a 2-foot upgrade very soon.
