Hayley Harding
The Idaho Statesman
KUNA, Idaho — Why did the turkeys cross the road?
In Kuna last week, it sure wasn’t because an Ada County sheriff’s deputy asked nicely.
The Ada County Sheriff’s Office posted a video to Facebook on Tuesday documenting Deputy Bryce Bienz’s struggle to clear three big turkeys out of the road.
Patrick Orr, spokesman for the Ada County sheriff’s office, said Bienz had just finished giving a driver a warning on Eagle Road when the turkeys approach that driver’s car. The driver negotiated around the turkeys, and Bienz decided to get them out of the road so they wouldn’t cause a crash.
That where the footage, recorded on his body camera, picks up. It shows Bienz approaching the turkeys in the two-lane road.
“Hey, go home,” he tells the turkeys in the video, waving his arms. “Go home! Go home!”
https://www.facebook.com/adacosheriff/videos/611852196334199
The turkeys did not take the commands very well.
Gobbling loudly, they started running toward Bienz, who then took out his baton and smacked it against the road. He yelled at the turkeys to get back, but they were not having it.
The turkeys followed Bienz to his vehicle as he laughed and tried in vain to get them out of the road. The turkeys continued to gobble, and at one point it in the video it appears that Bienz does as well.
“Will you guys just get out of the road?” he asks the turkeys about two minutes into the video.
A caption then pops up on the video, telling the viewer that “the negotiation lasts for another minute or so, but they just aren’t cooperating.”
The video shows a truck approaching from the other direction, and the driver asks the deputy if he needs any help. But then the turkeys just start running toward Bienz again.
“Get out of the road,” he tells them, laughing.
After Bienz eventually climbed into his vehicle, still laughing, the turkeys were still in the road or right beside it.
“Those guys are angry,” Bienz says.
In its caption with the video, the Sheriff’s Office says that it’s just “a reality of law enforcement” that sometimes deputies come across those who aren’t excited to see them.
“By the end, these things usually work themselves out,” the post reads. “Sometimes, however, they run up against hard-cases who just aren’t interested in listening, or talking, or anything, really. Last Sunday was one of those days for Dep. Bryce Bienz.”
Orr said it took about four minutes to get the turkeys off the road fully.
“It would be hard to say anybody learned anything from this incident,” he wrote in an email.