A runaway cow that escaped from a Queens Halal slaughter on Thursday wandered around area streets, amusing passersby before police safely captured the animal.
The cow fled from the Jamaica Archer Live Poultry and Meat Market at 92-56 165th St. and took a trot along the streets, cellphone video obtained by The Post shows.
The video shows the bovine scurrying past cars along 165th Street and crossing busy Jamaica Avenue into a pedestrian plaza, where amazed bystanders took the opportunity to snap pictures.
“He was very happy. He was like ‘Wow, I’m in the streets running!’ He was running back and forth, but he didn’t do anything to anybody,” said an employee at the nearby Pushka Pawn Shop off Jamaica Avenue who would only identify herself as Carolina.
Carolina added that she was glad to be watching the cow from behind closed doors.
“I was excited only because I was looking at it from afar,” she said. “But if I was in the streets next to it, I would run away.”
Her co-worker Claudia Escobar added, “It was very nice to see a cow running through the streets.”
The escaped cow then wandered into a parking garage on 165th Street across the street from the slaughterhouse, where members of the NYPD’s Emergency Services Unit finally corralled the animal by wrangling it with a rope and brought it back to the slaughterhouse, police said.
The brown and white cow was initially spotted on Jamaica Avenue near Merrick Boulevard around 12:15 p.m., cops said.
“Yes, you heard right! Cow on the loose-Jamaica Queens. All Officers safe. No injuries. Thank you all for your patience,” the official Twitter account for the 103rd Precinct tweeted along with photos of the captured cow.
Peter Donald, a spokesman for the NYPD, also tweeted, “Just in case you’re wondering: there is cow on the loose in Jamaica, Queens.”
The cow’s quest for freedom was short-lived as it is slated for slaughter on Friday, said a worker at the Jamaica Archer Live Poultry and Meat Market.
“The cow will be killed tomorrow,” the worker said, adding that slaughtering occurs every Friday.