View from the North 40: I recommend you don't goat there

Though this is not the year of the goat, one goat’s demands for attention were recently met with an official response that two officers may learn to regret.

An Enid, Oklahoma goat in the throes of an existential crisis elicited a 911 call on behalf of its distressed cries for “help” bringing a visit from two Enid officers that is creating international headlines for the would-be rescuers.

The headlines about a goat screaming for help sound like clickbait, but when they were followed by the words “body cam video,” who am I to resist this bait? Or the subsequent investigation to the source.

I should say up front that I have some personal experience with goats by way of a small herd my mother-in-law had here on the North 40 many years ago. They are interesting creatures, with their own charm — which in no way makes up for their nuisance quotient. Let’s just say that after my handful of years’ experience with them, I can’t imagine any circumstances under which I would willingly own goats.

So even before I clicked play on the video, originally posted with a very punny description on the Enid Police Department Facebook page the day after the incident, my sympathy was with the officers.

Monday of last week, Enid police officers David Sneed and Neal Storey responded to a 911 call about someone in a rural area calling out in distress. The video, taken from Sneed’s body camera, starts mid-response as the two officers are walking down a tree-lined and grass-covered road toward a small barn, from where they think the sound is coming.

A faint hollering is heard in the distance and Sneed says, “I think it’s a person,” so the two pick up their pace to a run in full police gear on rough ground, with Storey clearly not being built for speed but leading the charge all the same.

The distressed hollering can be heard distinctly as the officers get closer to the barn. It does sound like cries for help.

I would like to interject here, in the middle of the action, that the official text with the video says the calls were coming from a “damsel in distress.” I would say that from the tenor of the cries for help, I’m wondering if the women Oklahoma commonly sing bass with the vocal texture of a heavy drinker of whiskey and smoker of roll-your-own unfiltered cigarettes.

Those were some throaty cries for help.

Even though the “damsel” goat sounded like Doris the stepsister from the “Shrek” franchise, voiced by Larry King, it sounded at one point like a flesh and blood person in serious trouble.

When Storey gets close enough to make a definitive identification of the victim. though, and he says, “It’s a goat.”

By then a dog starts barking and the farmer emerges from the barn to confirm that, yes, it’s a goat unhappy about being locked away from its friend.

Everyone has a chuckle, and this would seem to be the happy ending to the story, aside from having to write up the report.

As I’ve said, though, someone in the department posted the video and comment online the next day, and you know those two officers have been taking a ribbing from their peers. Two days later, the story hit media outlets gaining new life like a house afire and is being carried across the U.S. and internationally.

In an interview with syndicated newsmagazine “Inside Edition,” the partners are clearly joining in on the laughter. But they’re a week into it now, and I wonder if they’re tired of the baaaad jokes and people trying to get their goat.

You see what I mean there? This incident may be a goat story that survives Storey and Sneed’s careers as their GOAT story.

I should probably apologize for contributing to this unwanted living legacy, but I come from a family that believes in the high value of the hard-knock life lessons. I hope you have all learned from this story that this is exactly the kind of chaotic trouble to expect from goats.

Storey and Sneed may become the spokespeople for a future “Don’t get hooked on goats” campaign spearheaded by the Enid Police Department.

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I don’t dislike goats, but I don’t like-like them either. Mostly I like them when they’re someone else’s problem not at http://www.facebook.com/viewfromthenorth40 .