Trip to store ends badly for deer

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. -- It was about 8 a.m. on one of the top shopping days of the year, and S & P Variety Store had not yet opened. But that didn't stop one animal. He jumped through the store's plate-glass window.

A three-point, white-tailed deer somehow made it across the intersection at Pine and Fifth streets Friday morning. He ran across a parking lot, stopped for a car on Vine Street in front of the store, then bolted and jumped through the window, witnesses said.

The deer was standing near an aisle of merchandise inside the store when police arrived.

"I was driving down Pine Street, and I saw him cross Pine." motorist Rick Boyer said. He turned to try to cut off the deer, which almost ran into another car driven by Carin Young.

Young was driving east on Vine Street when she stopped her vehicle after spotting the deer.

"He came through the parking lot," she said."I stopped. He stopped. And he went around me."

Walter White, who lives in an apartment above the store, said he heard the deer shatter the glass. He first thought someone was trying to break into the store.

Several policemen arrived on the scene. Because of the amount of blood on the sidewalk and in the store, the officers decided the deer's jaw was broken, and the most humane solution would be to kill him, patrolman Steve McCane said. The deer was shot inside the store by Lt. Tony Wallace. Damage to the interior of the store was minimal, McCane said.