HERRIN - Herrin Police Officer Brad Smith thought he was responding to a rather mild incident Friday afternoon - a wounded deer. As it turns out, he's lucky he had a gun nearby.

The deer, a 9-point buck, was trapped inside a fenced-in area just north of the guard shack at the former Maytag plant on the east end of town.

As Smith approached, the deer charged, forcing him to shoot and kill the animal to protect both himself and others nearby.

"I think it got scared and came running right at me. I really had no choice," Smith said. "It probably wasn't going to live anyway. I could see it had two broken lower jaws."