Cougar Had Already Attacked When It 'Lunged at Lady Deputy'

A mountain lion attacked a Colorado resident and then a sheriff's deputy before it was shot dead Wednesday afternoon. The initial attack was reported around 1:50pm in a remote area west of Loveland, which is 45 miles north of Denver, per NBC News. Representatives of the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office and Colorado Parks & Wildlife responded and were trying to contain the animal at a trailer park when it attacked a deputy around 2pm, the sheriff’s office said. A 9-year-old resident of the park says he was playing when deputies, with guns drawn, ordered him to get inside. "I ran like Forrest Gump to my trailer,'' Logan Lebleu tells the Coloradoan. "When I peeked behind my camper, I saw that mountain lion on top of a female officer … I never thought that would happen.''

Another park resident, Gregory Scott Paul, says the mountain lion had taken shelter under a trailer when it began "creeping towards" deputies, per the Coloradoan. "They took three or four shots at it,'' then "it lunged at the lady deputy from about 10 feet away," Paul says. "She put her arm up and it got her on the right shoulder." Tim Satterly, who was staying at the park, later spoke with the deputy. "She was OK, pretty shaken up," he tells KUSA. The mountain lion escaped the area but was shot and killed by a game warden about a half-mile from the park. The two injured parties were taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. CPW says the mountain lion was taken to a lab in Fort Collins, where a necropsy will be performed. (More mountain lion stories.)