Caught on Camera: Ohio Police Officers 'Attacked' by 'Runaway' Giant Pumpkin
“Luckily, no officers (or pumpkins) were harmed during the event,” the Bay Village Police Department said in a statement
It was a scene out of the Peanuts comic strip: a dark and stormy fall day — and a Great Pumpkin on the loose.
Rolling along the roadside, the large inflatable pumpkin blocked two lanes of traffic in Bay Village, Ohio.
A Monday, Oct. 14, storm had seemingly blown the giant pumpkin out of a resident’s yard and into traffic.
Bay Village police were dispatched to Wolf and Saddler roads for what law enforcement characterized as the “runaway pumpkin.”
In the dashcam footage shared by the department — under the tongue-in-cheek title “Bay Village Officer Attacked Over Halloween Display!!” — and reviewed by PEOPLE, an officer is seen getting out of his cruiser and approaching the pumpkin, whose tether strings flap loosely from its top.
As he reaches for the pumpkin, the officer’s entire body is immediately swallowed by the great mass, with the officer completely disappearing from view for some 20 seconds.
With the officer out of the way, the Jack-O-Lantern – crooked teeth spread in a wide grin – barrels toward the stalled cruiser, its giant green stem butting up against the windshield and the pumpkin eerily glowing in the car’s headlights.
“Oh yeah, I see it,” a backup officer says through the radios – audible in the footage – as the first officer grins, head down. The backup officer adds: “Where do you want me?”
As a police SUV approaches the scene, the pumpkin takes off in that vehicle’s direction, bumping into it.
An officer joins the first cop at the scene, and the pumpkin promptly pushes both officers back toward the vehicle.
Eventually, the two officers change tactics, moving around the pumpkin’s large girth and joining a civilian who – out of view from the camera – had begun pulling at the pumpkin’s loose strings.
A full minute passes as the two officers and the civilian – slowly – pull the pumpkin off the road and onto a patch of nearby grass.
“Luckily, no officers (or pumpkins) were harmed during the event,” police said in a statement, after the pumpkin was secured.
Police said the Great Pumpkin had been safely returned to its owner.
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