Overview
- Officers in New York’s Town of Ramapo responded on Dec. 28 to reports of a person in a mask and found a deer with a plastic bag over its head.
- Police cautiously approached the animal, removed the bag, and the deer immediately ran into nearby woods.
- The department shared video of the rescue on Facebook, showing the deer lying in the snow before it was freed.
- The caption leaned into puns, saying officers went into “deer-tective mode” and released the “suspect” back into the wild “on its own hoof.”
- Coverage by national outlets situated the incident within similar misidentifications, including a reported mountain lion that proved to be a neglected French bulldog and other false alarms.