A crazed deer disrupted mall-goers when it crashed through the University Mall on Sunday.
The disoriented creature busted through the glass windows of the Easy Chair Coffee Shop before going into the main mall area. It ended its desperate journey in the Weight Club, where members of Blacksburg Police Department, and the local game warden eventually ended its life.
“It was just the most bizarre thing that you could imagine happening,” said Christie Heslip, Weight Club general manager.
“It was a very unexpected guest,” said Russell Chisolm, Easy Chair Coffee Shop owner. “Basically it ran unchecked through the front door, then ran through the double doors into the mall. It ran around in a zig-zag, then ended up in the Weight Club.”
According to Chisolm, employee Mark Lentz was the only employee working when the deer came in at around 4 p.m. After recovering from the shock of a deer running through the shop, he was able to clean up and get everything under control.
After careening through the mall, the deer ran through the open doors of the Weight Club, where about 40 people were working out, according to Heslip.
“It came through the mall and into our doors and ran into a mirror, I’m guessing because it saw its reflection maybe,” said Heslip. “It shattered the mirror then ran into the women’s locker room where we were able to barricade it with a shelf.”
According to Heslip, the Blacksburg police officers and the game warden waited about an hour for a tranquilizer, but they could not locate one.
“By that point, the warden decided that its injuries were too great and that it needed to be put down,” said Heslip.
It is still unclear why the deer ran into the mall.
There have been no confirmations that the deer was rabid, Chisolm said.
No humans suffered injury.
A version of this article appeared in the Apr 14 issue of the Collegiate Times.
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Why would the police wait for an hour for a _tranquilizer_. The deer was obviously not well by running headlong into the mall and then a glass mirror. They should have shot it dead on cornering it. That's the humane thing to do, not wait around for an hour. Are deer now covered under Obamacare or something?
A similar incident happened a number of years ago at the Harris Teeter (now Kroger) store on South Main. The deer bolted in the front doors and dashed through the dairy case...
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You are hilarious. I laughed hysterically at your comment. Seriously, it was the funniest thing I have ever read.
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Glad I got a laugh out of someone. I'm surprised they didn't have to contact the policy committee to have the hem and haw over a proper response to the situation.
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Can't wait for the PETA protest...
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bring back the WBC, our sinful ways bring this upon us, God sent the Deer! (tongue in cheek of course)
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I think it's sad they killed the deer.
The deer probably got spooked and scared from all the traffic in the University Mall area. The police should have better access to tranquilizers as this area clearly has wildlife.
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Seriously? Deer overpopulation is a problem. That's why hunters are allowed to shoot them. Why would we go through the trouble to wait around for a tranquilizer, rehabilitate the deer, then put it back in the woods to be shot next hunting season? According to the "Virginia Deer Management Plan, 2006-2015," "Since the early 1990s, deer management objectives have switched from restoring and increasing to controlling and stabilizing populations over much of the Commonwealth."
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Deer are wild and overpopulated. When one intrudes on your property, you don't consider rehabilitation, you elect to give it retirement.
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