Authorities in Maryland were searching Sunday for a person who lured a group of seagulls to a shopping center parking lot before driving over them, killing at least 10 of the birds.
Officers were alerted on Saturday morning to a report of possible animal cruelty in the suburb of Laurel, between Washington D.C. and Baltimore, the city’s police department said in a statement.
The officers discovered that a person had bought a bag of popcorn from a dollar store and emptied it in the parking lot, intentionally attracting a flock of birds, the department said.
The person then plowed through the seagulls in a car and fled the scene, the statement said.
Authorities provided no other information about the suspect.
The department posted photos Sunday on its Facebook page of an officer with an injured bird whose wing had been broken in the incident. The officer brought the bird to a wildlife rescue center to have the wing mended, the department said.
