911 caller reports bull riding shotgun in car. Nebraska cops then meet ‘Howdy Doody’

When a 911 caller reported seeing someone driving a cow in their car, police in Nebraska didn’t realize just how big of an animal they were about to encounter.

“It was not communicated how large the animal was,” Capt. Michael Bauer said in a statement to McClatchy News.

“They thought that it was going to be a calf, something small or something that would actually fit inside the vehicle,” Capt. Chad Reiman told NCN.

But the responding officers with the Norfolk Police Division were about to meet an animal much, much bigger than a calf.

About one minute after receiving the 911 call, officers arrived on scene at 10:05 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 30, according to the daily police blotter.

It was then that the officers learned the “cow” was actually a Watusi bull, according to an NCN article shared by the police agency on Facebook.

The driver was pulled over, NCN reported, and Reiman said the officer gave the driver a warning and told him to “take the animal back home and leave the city.”

The bull — named Howdy Doody — often accompanies the driver in northeast Nebraska parades, authorities told McClatchy. But in those cases, the roads are closed to normal traffic.

In 2019, for example, the Antelope County News described Howdy Doody as a “fan favorite” in a local parade.

“Unfortunately Howdy Doody creates quite a vision obstruction for the driver for normal driving conditions,” Bauer said.

Norfolk, a city of about 26,000 people, is about 120 miles northwest of Omaha.

This story was originally published August 31, 2023 at 12:20 PM with the headline "911 caller reports bull riding shotgun in car. Nebraska cops then meet ‘Howdy Doody’."