--- title: Man Calls Cops to Report Chicken Crossing Road description: An Oregon man called police Monday to report a chicken was crossing the road. canonical: https://time.com/3108292/chicken-crossing-road-in-portland-oregon/ author: Laura Stampler article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-08-13T17:37:43.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:12:25.338Z og:title: Man un-ironically calls cops to report chicken crossing the road in Portland, Oregon og:description: Police "were unable to determine the chicken's intent." og:url: https://time.com/3108292/chicken-crossing-road-in-portland-oregon/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Man un-ironically calls cops to report chicken crossing the road in Portland, Oregon twitter:description: Police "were unable to determine the chicken's intent." twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Man Un-Ironically Calls Cops to Report Chicken Crossing the Road in Portland, Oregon by [Laura Stampler](https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Aug 13, 2014 5:37 PM UTC by [Laura Stampler](https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Aug 13, 2014 5:37 PM UTC A man un-ironically called the Portland, Oregon, police Monday to report a chicken was crossing the road, causing traffic. “Hi, um this is actually not a prank call,” the man began in his call to a non-emergency dispatcher. “I had to slow down to almost to a complete stop.” According to the [Associated Press](http://www.bigstory.ap.org/article/no-joke-chicken-crossing-road-blocks-traffic), Sgt. Pete Simpson said responding officers could not locate the bird and thus, “were unable to determine the chicken’s intent.” The Portland Police very ironically [posted](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gN4T%5FbOIFJU) the call on YouTube: Whether this is the greatest or worst thing of all time is up for interpretation. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3108292/chicken-crossing-road-in-portland-oregon/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3108292/chicken-crossing-road-in-portland-oregon/"},"headline":"Man Un-Ironically Calls Cops to Report Chicken Crossing the Road in Portland, Oregon","datePublished":"2014-08-13T17:37:43.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:12:25.338Z","description":"Police \"were unable to determine the chicken's intent.\"","url":"https://time.com/3108292/chicken-crossing-road-in-portland-oregon/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Crime","animals","Bizarre"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Laura Stampler","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3108292/chicken-crossing-road-in-portland-oregon/","name":"Man Un-Ironically Calls Cops to Report Chicken Crossing the Road in Portland, Oregon"}}]}] ```