A woman has revealed how ten armed police officers backed by a helicopter stormed her village after residents reported a tiger on the loose.
The incident occurred in Kent, the UK, where the police paid a visit to the village of Ightham after receiving reports of a tiger roaming around the area.
Worried about people’s safety, ten officers armed with guns and a helicopter were dispatched to the village only to come across a 20-year-old tiger sculpture designed by 85-year-old local Juliet Simpson.
As the senior lady explained, her sculpture is placed some one hundred feet away from the footpath whereas residents have never complained about it before.
Now, however, some apparently thought that the wild cat was alive – a thought that could be sparked due to the popularity of Netflix’s Tiger King according to one police officer.
“My son Duncan rang up and said there were armed police on the hill leading up to my house. Ten of them! By then I could see the helicopter above, and I thought, goodness me,” Juliet said in an interview with The Guardian.
“So then I walked up the road and saw the police Land Rover. I went up and said: ‘Do you want to be introduced to this tiger?’”
As the proud grandma expressed, the police appeared to like her tiger and claimed it looked “very lifelike.”
However, she finds it hard to believe that anyone would mistake the sculpture for a real animal.
“So many people have so little real knowledge of how animals behave in the countryside. Any escaped cat of any sort would be in a state of terror, and would not be basking in the sun, amiably looking up at the nearest footpath,” she added.
After the incident, Martha, the 85-year-old’s granddaughter, shared the images of the sculpture on Twitter, much to the amusement of internet users.
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Replaced!