Equestrian Control

I learned a valuable lesson this past weekend (who knew grad school could be such an educational experience?). I went to a tailgate with some friends that were in town and saw quite the scene. To best understand the scene that unfolded one must be aware of two different facts:
1) The St. Joseph police department has started using mounted officers to monitor tailgates
and
2) People are idiots when they drink too much.

I digress...

So we were at this tailgate and two mounted officers rode by on horses. This act of riding by apparently upset one of the patrons of said tailgate and he began to yell at the police officers belligerently. Having now noticed the absurdly drunk male, the officers rode on over and instructed him to leave. He obviously refused and continued to scream his profanities, until all of a sudden we see the horse take a few steps forward and knock the guy on his tushy. At this point, drunk guy begins to yell even more violently about the assault he has just suffered and the instance of police brutality (or horse brutality). To make a longer story not as long, the next events included the horse guard calling for back up and the idiot being taken away in handcuffs (with his concerned friends taking pictures the entire time). My favorite part of the story however is that as the cop was calling for back up he said into his walkie talkie

"After the third time, I instructed my horse to take him down."


Awesome. Honestly, who knew that horses were used in that way? I must admit that I seriously thought that the only benefit of a horse guard was the fact that you could quickly chase people down, I had no idea that you could issue a "kill" command and they would respond so effectively. I guess it is okay now that the lasso is a thing of the past. I am viewing the world, much less acts against crime these days in a whole new way.
This definitely changes my entire outlook on the security system outside of the Buckingham Palace, pretty soon people will tell me that those fuzzy hats have a function as well.
What will they think of next?