‘A little humor for the day’: Sunderland Police wrangle loose llama

SUNDERLAND — Whenever a suspect is taken into custody, the police officer must read the Miranda rights, a rule that applies to suspects of all shapes, sizes and apparently species.

“I wrangled him. … Now what?” Police Chief Erik Demetropoulos said in a video posted to the Sunderland Police Department’s Facebook page on Thursday.

In the video, Demetropoulos clutches a rope tied around his catch of the day — a runaway llama sauntering beside him.

After a pause, the police chief told the llama, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law.”

On Thursday afternoon, the police received a call from a concerned Russell Street resident “that a llama was on the loose.” After a quick laugh, Demetropoulos and Officer Brenda Tozloski set off to settle the llama drama.

“He didn’t want to go with us,” Demetropoulos said of the rogue animal.

With the llama’s owner out of town, he and Tozloski were on their own to wrangle the rebel that had wandered into the woods near its pasture. The pair surrounded the llama, and from then on, “He fully cooperated.”

After Demetropoulos threw a rope around the llama’s neck, he walked the creature back to its pasture, with an active audience.

“You can hear all the animals laughing or cheering,” Demetropoulos said, describing the Facebook video.

While police officers are accustomed to catching animals in Sunderland, the usual suspects are horses, sheep, cows and other staple farm animals. According to Demetropoulos, the incident marked the first llama on the loose this year — “a little humor for the day.”

“Here at Sunderland [Police Department], we happily serve all in our community,” the Facebook post reads.

As for the fugitive’s name, “He pleaded the Fifth,” Demetropoulos said.