North Ridgeville Horseplay

On November 10, North Ridgeville officers were dispatched to the area of Center Ridge and Maddock Road following multiple calls reporting horses in the roadway. After about 30 minutes of horseplay, and help from some awesome residents, Joey and his friends were escorted back home safely.

North Ridgeville Police have a storied history of wildlife encounters. Here is a look back on some excerpts of their adventures.

North Ridgeville Police: Wild Adventures

April 20, 2023 – Geese

Every year a couple geese hatch eggs on top of the live roof at LCCC on Lorain Rd. It’s kind of a win/lose proposition. They win because mammal predators don’t eat their eggs or their babies. They lose because said babies always freak out at some point and jump of the roof while “I believe I can fly” plays in their head.

Problem is, they can’t. At all. So they end up plunging to their destiny below only for mom and dad to try, try again. Next year will be different.

Enter our hero. I had a nickname that made me laugh but it will stick with him forever. Until the day he retires he’ll be on calls and people will be like “Hey. Are you <Insert hilarious nickname here>”. Kids will be driving by yelling “<Insert hilarious nickname here>, <Insert hilarious nickname here>, watcha gonna do when he comes for you” I played these scenarios out in my mind and I like him too much for that.

Anyway, our hero, no not John Metzo but Ptlm. Ian Wilkshire happened to be working security at the college today and saw that the eggs had hatched. Mom and Dad had flown off to do whatever new geese parents do and the babies were antsy.

With the help of LCCC staff, Ian was able to rescue said kamikaze goslings and reunite them with mom and dad who were at a pond a short distance away, albeit a good distance lower.

He posted this on his personal page but I wanted everyone to know. These are the small things the men and women of this department do every day. The guys I work with on the road can’t be beat and I wanted to share this.

Nice work <Insert hilarious nickname here>.

Also, and probably somewhat related, John Metzo won’t stand for this. Expect a picture of him saving a flamingo or fighting a timber wolf in the near future.

June 11, 2022 – Horses

Well. Here we are again. Folks in the Ridgefield development walked out their front door with a cup of coffee to start a beautiful summer day. As they open their doors and step outside to pick up their newspaper these two are clippity clopping (that’s a technical equine term for you non horse city folk) down the middle of the street.

<Cue the phone lines at the station lighting up.>

As luck would have it, both for the horses and the citizens, our resident WACO (Weird Animal Call Officer), John Metzo, was 1 minute away. With the help of his apprentice, Officer Brandon Kjaer, and a small rope and two dog leashes, both fugitive horses were taken into custody. I wish I had videos of the lassoing, but there aren’t any, though Brandon contemplated trying to ride one back to wherever they came from. I promise you, if that happens, we will post the video. Both at the scene and in the ambulance.

Anyway. Thanks to some carrots and apples from the NEIGHbors (get it? NEIGH-bors…..whatever.) they were able to get control of the situation without getting kicked over a house.

We’re working on finding the owners but if you live in Olmsted Township and know where these two belong, give us a call at 440-327-2191 because, well, the extent of our plan has played out. I guess we’ll just stand here all day with them until the owners come. Unless Brandon rides them somewhere.

Anyway. Rest easy citizens. The wild horses are no longer terrorizing Ridgefield.

All in a days work.

Update: We found the owner. Brandon is sad. Just like that, his vision of being a cowboy has been dashed. Maybe we should start a mounted unit for him.

September 27, 2021 – Snake

Well. The call was a big Diamondback Rattlesnake in the middle of Lorain Rd. Now normally you’d just shrug this off as someone getting all excited about a little garter snake and over reacting. Except for one very important part of this story that I left out.

Officer John Metzo was dispatched to it.

John rescued a kangaroo. He pulled a raccoon out of a dishwasher. He caught a cow named “Moodini” that fell out of a truck. If anyone was going to a Diamondback Rattlesnake call, it’s John.

Now, keep in mind that we’re not an urban community but we’re urban enough that we don’t run into a lot of wildlife outside of deer and raccoons. And kangaroos. And cows, that are actually bulls, but whatever. And pigs following people home. And skunks with cups on their heads. I digress.

We found said rattlesnake on the side of Lorain Rd. but it wasn’t rattling. And it was 27 feet long. And might have been a cobra. In fairness we don’t know snakes.

John gets it off the road with a noose and now he’s mad. The anaconda, not John. I look at John, John looks at me. “Now what?” I ask. We agree that we can’t release a 30 foot black mamba into the neighborhood so we call the Metroparks and they send out a Ranger.

Turns out it’s a 6 foot rat snake. Don’t judge us. It looked bigger when it tried to kill us.

Anyway. All’s well. The Ranger seized the nope rope and took him to the land of nope ropes so he can live out his days, apparently chasing rats.

No snakes were harmed in this incident. We can’t speak for what’s about to happen to the rats.

March 16, 2021 – Racoon

So a resident called and said he had a raccoon in his dishwasher.

Wait. What?

Luckily we had our resident Absurd Animal Call Officer, Ptlm John Metzo, on shift.

You may remember Ptlm Metzo from such hits as “There’s a kangaroo hopping next to my car” and “Um….a cow just fell out of a trailer driving down the road” The North Ridgeville Police Department proudly brings you our newest offering “There’s a raccoon on my dish rack.”

Apparently said raccoon busted through the bathroom light, ransacked the kitchen, then took a well deserved nap in the washer.

All in a days work……for John.

*No raccoons were harmed in the making of this Facebook post.

October 15, 2019 – Cow

As I’m getting into my cruiser this afternoon I hear Officer John Metzo tell dispatch that he’s out on a call that he was dispatched to.

“Good luck” was her reply.

“Good luck?” I say. “That’s weird”

My interest piqued, I open the call screen. The call location is Root Rd. Just North of Lorain Rd.

“A cow fell out of a truck”

Wait. What? I’m enroute. I am soooo enroute.

I arrive on scene and this is exactly as reported. Apparently a truck was pulling a trailer and the back door popped open and out came said cow. Unscathed, and making a concerted effort at freedom. Officer Ryan Jones is now there and they are trying to corral the fastest cow I’ve ever seen, though in fairness, my experience with cows is quite limited.

We go left, he goes right. We go right, he goes left. He manages to get across Root Rd with three cruisers trying to corral him before he fights a Subaru. We chase him straight into the open garage of Worcester’s. End game.

As we’re congratulating ourselves on being cowboys, he runs out of the open back door.

Son of a….

Back in pursuit.

He runs to the embankment of SR 10, finds the only hole in the perimeter fence, and heads for the highway. Bad. Very bad. Ryan has a decision to make, and he chooses ninja warrior over the other. He sprints up the embankment, heads him off, and talks him out of being murdered by a semi.

Long story short, we are able to corral him while driving our trusty steeds….well, Police Interceptors, through a really nice and understanding farmer’s soybean field. (Sorry again)

The owner shows up and immediately lets two more cows loose, which seems like an absolutely horrible idea, though again reference our lack of cow herding education. Turns out, it totally worked. Our fugitive cow runs over to the other two. After some negotiation, they convince him to get back in the trailer before things get worse.

While we’re talking about how we absolutely couldn’t get a rope on this cow the owner lets us in on the cow’s name. No joke. I swear to you this is his name.

Moodini.

I literally could not have made that up if I wanted to and it is absolutely fitting.

Anyway, Moodini is back where he belongs. Nothing is hurt, cars, cows, or people, and the citizens can once again sleep peacefully knowing they will not be trampled to death by a cow while checking their mail.

All in a days work. Rest easy citizens. Rest easy.

Edit: Apparently this is a boy? I don’t know. We admittedly failed cow class in the academy.

February 28, 2019 – Turkey

Well, like all good things, this has come to an end, albeit a happy one. We know the community has become somewhat attached to him so we figured we’d let you know.

Today we were forced to relocate the Sugar Ridge turkey that has taken up residence at Sugar Ridge and Maddock Rd. We have been having to go out with this turkey multiple times a day because he thinks he owns the road. It’s a matter of time before there was going to be a crash. Today was the final straw when we had a dog get hit when he chased it into the road. The dog, while banged up, will be fine. We discussed this with the homeowner, whom the turkey adopted, and he completely understood the safety concerns and was happy he was being moved somewhere safer.

The turkey has been relocated to a large property in Litchfield where he will be much safer and won’t be chasing cars down the road anymore.

This is the last post we’ll make about this. Hopefully we don’t have a repeat of the pig. Or the kangaroo. Or the skunk. Sigh……

Seriously though…..media, this is our statement. We have other work to attend to.

May 19, 2018 – Pig

At 5:26 this morning we received a call from a male who stated that he was walking home on Center Ridge from the Train Station in Elyria. He went on to state that he was being followed by a pig and didn’t know what to do. A pig. Riiiight.

Night shift responded to the obviously drunk guy walking home from the bar at 5:26 in the morning. He was at least drunk enough to call the police on himself while hallucinating.

Upon arrival, they found a very sober male walking eastbound on Center Ridge near Maddock Rd. from the actual Amtrak train station in Elyria, not the bar. Oh, and he was being followed by a pig.

Yes, a pig.

Ptlm. Kuduzovic managed to wrangle (I think this is the correct word to use) said pig into his cruiser and he is currently secured in our pig pens…..er, dog kennels. Whatever.

You’d have thought we would have learned our lesson after the kangaroo incident.

Is this real life?

Also, we will mention the irony of the pig in a police car now so that anyone that thinks they’re funny is actually unoriginal and trying too hard.

Have a great day.

UPDATE 8:23am: THE PIG HAS BEEN RETURNED TO ITS OWNER.

November 27, 2015 – Kangaroo

We get animal calls. A lot of animal calls. Usually dogs. Every now and then a horse. I had a potbellied pig rooting through a flower bed once.

At 5am today a motorist was driving down the road and a kangaroo (yes, a kangaroo) was doing whatever kangaroos do in the middle of Lorain Rd. near Stonebriar.

We learn a lot of things at the academy.

This isn’t one of them.

Sgt. Corey Sabo, Ptlm. John Metzo, and Ptlm Brad Parker all responded and were able to get the kangaroo, named “Foster” (Get it?? Awesome), back to his pen on Island Road, though it appears that he wanted to box Ptlm Metzo before going back in the second picture. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed and Foster called it a night before it came to blows.

And yes, with the proper permits, you can have a kangaroo in the city.