This incident took place in Ohio… not India or Africa. 

Police in Pickaway County, Ohio, shot a zebra dead after it attacked its owner and nearly ripped his arm off and then charged at others on the property.

The Pickaway County Sheriff’s Office received a 911 call about a zebra attack on a rural property in Circleville, Ohio, at around 5:30 pm on Sunday, March 12. Responding officers found the owner, Ronald Clifton, lying on the ground near a herd of zebras. 

A police report filed by the officers states that the man was bleeding heavily from a bite wound below his right elbow.

Wasting no time, one of the officers placed his police car between the man and the herd to tend to the injured man. According to the report, the officer was helping the victim when one of the zebras charged at his driver’s side door, acting hostile.

The officer swung into action and managed to chase off the large zebra with his vehicle’s sirens and air horns. After the zebra retreated, he and another officer administered a tourniquet on the 72-year-old man’s arm and helped him to his feet.

They led Clifton to the Emergency Medical Service (EMS) officers, who continued to care for him, but officers soon noticed that the same aggressive zebra was headed in the direction of the victim’s family and police officers. According to the report, Clifton’s family gave the officers the green light to shoot down the zebra if it got too close to them.

One of the police sergeants tried to scare off the zebra again by yelling at the animal as it approached her, but to no avail. When it kept on coming toward her, the officer, fearing for her life, took her shotgun and hit the zebra right between the eyes.  Body cam footage shows the angry animal charging before it is shot. 

The officer who killed the aggressive animal said in the police report that she had been observing the zebra and that it appeared to be behaving protectively toward the other five or six female zebras in the field when they arrived at the scene. 

EMS transported the injured man to the hospital, where he was treated for his wounds. His family said on Monday that the man was in stable condition and his arm would not be amputated. 

The Ohio Department of Agriculture does not consider zebras to be dangerous wild animals and they can be kept as pets.  It is unclear if authorities will remove the remaining zebras from the property.