Posted on 10/10/2005 5:40:08 PM PDT by txroadkill
DALLAS -- Several Oklahoma Sooner fans are recovering from injuries sustained by a police horse on Saturday night.
While Dallas mounted police broke up a fight in the West End, one of the horses fell onto the crowd, injuring four people.
A representative for the Dallas Police Department told NBC 5 that officers did what was necessary to break up the crowd but one victim's family and friends aren't so sure.
C.J. Templeton said when officers arrived, there was no where to go and that they were surrounded by throngs of people and the police horses.
"There just wasn't anywhere to go ... you were just stuck," said Templeton.
Officials aren't sure what caused the horse to topple over, but Templeton recalled the horse's frantic movements.
"It was almost like his front feet, he was picking them up to gallop, but he wasn't moving," said Templeton.
Several people were hit by the horse, and four were sent to Baylor Medical Center in Dallas for treatment.
Templeton sprained her ankle in the incident, but said her friend Tammy Dawson, 30, was in worse shape.
She has "three broken ribs, a collapsed lung and a cracked sternum," said Dawson's boyfriend Quannah Underwood. "I definitely think it could have been handled better."
Dawson's mother, Karen Embry, drove to Dallas from Norman, Okla., after hearing of the accident and hoped to not only aid her daughter, but find out why the accident happened.
"I still don't understand how it happened," said Embry. "I want some answers."
Mrs. Embry told NBC 5 that she has repeatedly tried to talk to a supervisor with the Dallas police to get a copy of the police report, but said they won't talk to her and keep hanging up on her.
Despite the department's statement on the accident, victims think the situation could have been handled in a better way.
"I think it was extremely unnecessary," said Templeton
A DPD spokesperson told NBC 5 it was critical to get officers into the area when the fight broke out.
Dawson is currently listed in good condition.
And just how are they suppose to handle a horse falling down?
Is the horse OK?
With a gyroscope
Don't sight see at a fight, you are liable to become part of the action. If the fans begin to break up when the fight breaks out instead of crowding together, the police can get in and out much easier.
Anyone who is close enough to a police horse to get injured during a fight didn't have the common sense to get out of the way. The horses are meant to be intimidating.
Y'all don't suppose there was alcohol involved, do you?
(The fans, not the horse)
Victims to a falling horse. There's a new one.
It takes a well trained horse and a good rider for crowd control. Horses do not like unsure footing and I'm sure the horse must have stepped on something moving to have fallen over.
That's the first question that I had, too. I have been trying to figure out how a horse just "falls over". They are pretty stable on their feet. The article says that the horse was picking up it's front feet like it was trying to gallop; It makes me wonder if one of the miscreants was doing something to the horse that the officer couldn't see.
It sounds like the horse was trying to get away from something in a hurry. Maybe somebody was jabbing it in the chest? Pulling hard on the bridle, maybe? Something appears to have freaked it out to the point that it just wanted to get away.
Drunk horse, for sure.
They really enjoy the work, too. ;-)
Well...This is in Texas
Justice is the one thing you should always find You got to saddle up your boys You got to draw a hard line. When the gun smoke settles we’ll sing a victory tune and We’ll all meet back at the local saloon. We’ll raise up our glasses against evil forces Singing whiskey for my men, and beer for my horses
I'll second that.I have a couple of quarter horses in the barn that really know how to throw their weight around.
One of the best taglines I've seen.
Oklahoma football is becoming quite the dangerous sport for spectators, isn't it? :)
Or... one of those hand held high voltage "defense" gadgets they sell at gun stores...
The latter would be my guess. It happenned at a fight...
Or too drunk.
Police use horses for crowd control because people know that they are somewhat unpredictable and dangerous. It works.
If you are in an unruly crowd, and the police bring in horses, unless it is a matter for which you are willing to be severely injured or killed, just walk away. At the first sight of a horse, just walk away.
My mare, who is the calmest Thoroughbred on earth, occasionally just goes nuts. She's been spooked galloping down a hill on a frosty day during a fox hunt, by oil drums rolling off the back of a pickup truck, by a wheelbarrow with a little kid in it, and occasionally by absolutely nothing that we could figure out.
There wouldn't need to be a cattle prod or anything else in the crowd, if something spooked the horse it would try to lift its front end and wheel on its hind legs - if the horses weren't shod with the borium studs it could slip and go down.
First question is what are the police using for horseshoes.
Understatement!
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