243 goats die after California trailer wreck

SAN FRANCISCO -- More than 240 goats needlessly suffocated in an overturned livestock trailer because police would not let their herder free them, their owner said yesterday.

"They were screaming, screaming, screaming to get out," said Terri Oyarzun, owner of Goats R Us, an Orinda, Calif. , company that rents goats for grazing brush that poses fire hazards. "They died because the police wouldn't let them out of the trailer."

In all, 243 goats died Friday after the four-tier truck trailer transporting them flipped when the truck's driver made a sharp turn in San Rafael, a town in Marin County north of San Francisco.

Police were so concerned with controlling traffic and preventing another accident that they disregarded pleas by the goat's herder , Oyarzun said. About 150 goats survived, he said.

"Those goats didn't have to die," she said. "It wasn't necessary. We had herding dogs."