An NYPD Police Horse Escaped in Times Square Tonight
On Wednesday, a Facebook user posted a photograph of three police horses (with their riders) with the caption, “Excitement in Times Square, just called 911, as a beautiful police horse galloped past us on W. 48th St. and headed in wrong direction South on 6th Avenue!”
There's an escaped police horse running AGAINST TRAFFIC in Times Square and it's fucking insane!!
— Mike Scollins (@mikescollins) March 3, 2016
“Down block found policeman jockey hit by taxi....he was standing w bloody nose but OMG where is that horse now?!”
The fact that there don’t seem to be any photographs yet of this purported incident is suspicious, and intermittent glances at a variety of live video feeds from Times Square do not show an escaped horse, much less the attendant panic that it would induce in a crowd.
does anyone have a picture of the police horse that's on the loose in Times Square?
— Peter Khoury (@pkhoury_nyt) March 3, 2016
There's currently an NYPD horse running loose in the vicinity of Times Square
— garybaumgarten (@garybaumgarten) March 3, 2016
Called for comment, the NYPD requested that Gawker resubmit questions about the purported escape via email. We’ll update if they reply.
Update – 10:03 pm
ABC 7 NY has confirmed that a police horse named “Gunny” got loose in Times Square around 7:25pm on Wednesday:
Police rushed in to Times Square Wednesday night to search for Gunny after he bucked his mounted unit officer, maybe after being hit by a car.
The officer was dragged a bit, but was eventually able to get free from horse.
Gunny did do some minor damage to three cars, but he wasn’t out of control. He knew exactly where he was going.
He galloped straight over to the parking garage on W. 47th street, where the mounted unit hangs out when they’re on break, and sauntered right up to his best friend.
The officer was hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries, and a police investigation is ongoing.
