Cops Respond to Call of Woman Screaming 'Let Me Out.' Turns Out To Be 40-Year-Old Parrot
It’s important as we go about our daily lives to be aware of what’s going on around us and ready to jump into action if we think someone needs help.
That’s exactly what one woman in Lake Worth Beach, Florida, did when she heard screams for help coming from her neighbor’s backyard last week.
“Help, let me out!” repeated the voice, over and over. Police were sent to investigate, and when they reached the house in question, resident Jason Sprague was out front working on his wife’s car.
The cops probably didn’t know what to expect, but Sprague — as evidence by the security video he later posted — seemed to catch on pretty quickly.
He excused himself for a moment, went into his backyard, and reappeared with a green and yellow parrot perched on his hand.
He introduced the police to Rambo, who was the culprit. The yellow-naped amazon, which Sprague has owned since he was a boy, has quite a vocabulary.
One of his favorite phrases? “Help! Let me out!” Sprague explained that when he and his brothers were teens they had thought it would be funny to teach the bird — who lived in a cage during his younger years — to ask for help getting out of his cage.
“Back then we started teaching him, ‘Help let me out,’ to scream when he was in the cage,” Sprague told WPEC. “It didn’t take him very long to say, ‘Help let me out,’ or ‘Help, help let me out!'”
Nearly 40 years old now, Rambo no longer lives in a cage, and Sprague explained that the bird is a “couch potato” who loves to cycle through his phrases while he’s outside on his perch, enjoying the fresh air.
Once the cops realized that there was no one in distress, just a mouthy bird, they found the humor in the situation.
“They cracked up laughing,” Sprague told the Orlando Sentinel.
“Our Deputies in Lake Worth Beach came to the help of someone screaming for help,” the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office shared on Saturday, along with the security video. “Hilarity ensued.”
“OMG you guys,” Sprague’s wife, Gia Jury, shared on Saturday. “This s— is getting crazy. If you haven’t seen the video look on my art page. Our parrot Rambo is famous. The video with him and the police has gone completely viral. It was on Inside Edition last night, Fox & other news channels, has been reported as far away as the UK and Nigeria! Uncle Rambo has arrived!”
As for the vigilant neighbor who initially called in, all is well between her, Sprague and Rambo.
Sprague made sure to visit her with the bird to put her mind at ease.
“She thought it was a woman being thrown in the pool and then when it kept going on she figured she would call the police,” Sprague told WPEC. “We had a good talk, a good laugh. Then I proceeded to introduce [Rambo] to the woman down the street who called the police.”
“She was very apologetic at first,” he told the Sentinel. “Then she cracked up laughing.”
Rambo has been repeating his memorized cry for help for decades, and as Sprague said, “I can’t believe it took this long for somebody to call the police.”
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