Bull escapes slaughter house and roams streets of New York City for two hours

A bull escaped from a slaughter house and roamed the streets of New York City for two hours before it died when it was captured.

The black bull broke free from the Aziz slaughter house in the neighbourhood of Jamaica, Queens on Tuesday morning, police said.

Officers received a stream of emergency calls when the animal was spotted outside a train station about 20 minutes after its escape.

Video footage taken from a news helicopter showed the animal trotting down streets and onto lawns with a police car in slow pursuit.

Officers shot the bull with several tranquiliser darts but it kept moving.

The animal was cornered two miles from the train station in a yard but escaped again and managed to trudge another half mile.

The nimble bovine eluded attempts to box it in between police vehicles by squeezing through narrow openings and it also ripped the door off a car.

It was finally caught at 12.20pm. An animal sanctuary in New Jersey agreed to accept the bull and it was driven to a city shelter in Brooklyn to be collected.

But the animal later died at the shelter.

There were no reports of any injuries during the chase.