LONDON — Police shot and killed a runaway bull that charged through an English village as children were being dropped off at school.

Paul Dalton was taking his grandchildren to class Wednesday morning in Haslington, northwestern England, when he said he heard a commotion behind them and turned to see a bull charging up the road.

The primary school went into lockdown and residents were warned to stay indoors as police and the bull's owner tried unsuccessfully to corral the agitated animal.

Because of the risk posed to residents if the rampage continued, Cheshire police said they decided to ''dispatch the animal before anyone was seriously hurt.''

Dalton said on Facebook that when he walked back to his car, he found the avenue blocked by two vans, two trailers and three police cars.

''Had to wait an hour to recover car,'' he wrote. "Luckily undamaged.''

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Who can imagine how many times in the by-gone days of rural England so wonderfully described by the likes of Thomas Hardy that a masculine bovine managed to evade its handlers and run amok for a short time before being captured and returned to its barnyard? Such an event was so little noticed that it probably wasn't mentioned in even local journals, much less news media on the other side of the world. The creature was simply herded back into its pen, where it no doubt wished to return anyway, by its owner and other available rustics. 

It's a sad commentary that even in the bucolic countryside where these animals have been a normal part of life for many centuries, the post-industrial world now considers them unusual and the majority of folk haven't a clue on how to handle them. Today the average child in the "developed" world has never touched a live chicken, cow, goose or duck.