Officer Cassandra Wells takes Murphy the police horse out for a ride, in Portland, Ore., in this 2013 photo.PORTLAND, Ore. – Murphy the horse, once a woebegone Oregon ranch animal, had to shed 200 pounds to make the Portland police force, and now he has collared his first suspect.
Murphy, carrying Officer Cassandra Wells, galloped six blocks to catch a break-in suspect last week. He kept the suspect trapped next to a building in the Old Town district until officers could cuff him.
“He did everything I needed him to do,” Wells told The Oregonian.
The arrest caps a ripe-for-the-movies story about a horse that weighed in at 1,900 pounds after his owner, in financial distress, sold him off to a Portland officer searching the Internet for a new member of the city’s popular Mounted Patrol Unit.
Murphy was undersize at birth, even though he was born three weeks overdue. He was easily distracted and not considered particularly handsome, unlike a younger half-brother who turned out to be a trophy winner.