(CNN) -- One damp, chilly evening in October, Dolores Kopchak called the police. She had a rather unusual problem: a lion in her back yard. She was calling from Kopchak Road, named after her family and familiar to law enforcement authorities in the small town of Zanesville, Ohio. They had had responded to complaints there before. Kopchak's neighbor, Terry Thompson, owned a bunch of wild animals. When Sgt. Steve Blake arrived on the scene, he saw a black bear and two African lions. He immediately shut down Kopchak Road and called for help. What happened next on that evening reads more like the stuff of an action-packed adventure novel than police reports.
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County sheriff's office releases reports about what happened in Zanesville, Ohio
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Deputies came face to face with dangerous animals
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Owner Terry Thompson cut their cages and then killed himself
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The deputies said they were ordered to "neutralize" the animals on the prowl
On his way out, @placeholder saw a body near an embankment.