PINEVILLE, LOUISIANA — On April 22, 2026, a Facebook post went viral in the Pineville area alleging that an employee at China Queen — a restaurant located in the 2900 block of Cottingham Expressway — had been seen skinning a dead animal on the premises. The post included a photograph. The post circulated rapidly. The Pineville Police Department received a complaint and sent officers to the restaurant.
Officers arrived at China Queen and conducted an inspection. They asked about the animal. They were told the animal was a deer. They were told the deer had been found dead on the side of the road. They were told the deer had been collected. They asked to see the freezer. Inside the freezer, officers found a deer carcass stored alongside other food that was, in the language of the police statement, “allegedly intended to be served to customers.”
Brent would like everyone to sit with that sentence. A deer carcass. In the freezer. Next to the food. The food that is served to customers. The deer that was found dead on the side of a road. In the same freezer. At the same temperature. On the same shelf, or adjacent shelves, or in whatever configuration a restaurant freezer uses to organize its inventory, which now included, alongside the frozen proteins and vegetables that appear on the menu, one deer, sourced from the shoulder of a Louisiana highway.
The Apology, Which Was Taped To The Door
China Queen responded by placing a handwritten note on the front door of the restaurant. The note read: “We apologize for the recent incident. The item involved was never intended to be served to customers, but it was improperly stored. It has been fully cleaned and sanitized. We are cooperating with health authorities and have corrected our procedures to ensure this does not happen again. Thank you for your understanding.”
Brent has read this note several times. Brent would like to address it in sections.
“The item involved.” The item is a deer. The item is a whole deer carcass that was found dead on the side of a road and transported to a restaurant and placed in a commercial freezer. The note calls it “the item.” The note does not call it “the deer” or “the roadkill” or “the animal we collected from a highway.” It calls it “the item,” as though the thing in the freezer were a misplaced box of napkins or a case of soy sauce that ended up on the wrong shelf, and not a dead wild animal that a person saw another person skinning.
“Was never intended to be served to customers.” The deer was in the freezer. The freezer is where the restaurant stores food that is intended to be served to customers. The freezer is the staging area. The freezer is the place between acquisition and service. Things go into the freezer for one reason in a restaurant, and the reason is that they will come out of the freezer later and be prepared and placed on a plate and given to a person who ordered from a menu. The deer was in that freezer. The note says it was not intended to be served. The freezer says otherwise. The freezer is more credible than the note.
“But it was improperly stored.” Brent considers this the most extraordinary use of the phrase “improperly stored” in the history of food service. “Improperly stored” is a phrase that normally applies to situations like: the chicken was at the wrong temperature, the seafood was not in a sealed container, the dairy products were on the wrong shelf. “Improperly stored” does not normally apply to situations where the item in question is a deer carcass sourced from the side of a highway. The improper storage is not the problem. The storage is not the part that concerns people. The deer is the part that concerns people. The storage of the deer is secondary to the existence of the deer. You cannot solve the deer problem by storing the deer correctly. There is no correct storage for a roadkill deer in a restaurant freezer because there is no correct reason for a roadkill deer to be in a restaurant freezer.
“It has been fully cleaned and sanitized.” Brent does not know what was cleaned and sanitized — the freezer, the restaurant, the deer’s former location, or the concept of food safety as it applies to this establishment. Brent suspects the freezer. Brent hopes the freezer.
The Law, Which Makes This Worse
Louisiana does not have a roadkill salvage permit program. Unlike approximately 30 other states that allow residents to collect roadkill deer under various permitting systems — some requiring a phone call, some requiring an app, some requiring a hunting license — Louisiana does not permit the collection of roadkill deer without the prior consent of a game warden from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.
This is not a technicality. This is a law. The law exists because wildlife officials use roadkill data to track deer population patterns and disease spread, and because the alternative — allowing anyone to collect dead deer from the roadside without documentation — creates an environment in which “I found it on the road” becomes a convenient explanation for poached wildlife. The law applies to everyone. The law applies to hunters. The law applies to the person who hit the deer with their own vehicle. The law applies to restaurants on Cottingham Expressway.
The penalty for illegal possession of a deer in Louisiana: a fine between $400 and $950 and up to 120 days in jail.
Brent has confirmed with multiple sources that no game warden was contacted in connection with the China Queen deer. No one called the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries at (337) 262-2080 — a number that is publicly available, that Brent has just provided, and that exists specifically for situations in which a person encounters a dead deer and wants to know whether they can take it. The answer, in Louisiana, is almost always no. Most requests don’t go in the driver’s favor, and the driver at least has the argument that they hit the deer with their car. China Queen did not hit the deer with their car. China Queen found the deer already dead on the side of a road, collected it, transported it to a restaurant, and placed it in a freezer next to the General Tso’s chicken.
What Brent Cannot Confirm
Brent cannot confirm how long the deer had been in the freezer. Brent cannot confirm how long the deer had been dead before it was collected from the roadside. Brent cannot confirm the species of deer, though white-tailed deer are overwhelmingly the dominant species in central Louisiana. Brent cannot confirm whether any portion of the deer had already been processed, prepared, or served prior to the Facebook post that exposed the situation. Brent cannot confirm what the deer would have been used for. Brent cannot confirm whether this was the first time or whether this was a practice. Brent cannot confirm the employee’s intent, the management’s knowledge, or the timeline of events between the deer’s death on the road and its arrival in the freezer.
What Brent can confirm: police found a deer carcass in the freezer of a restaurant, alongside food intended for customers. The deer came from the side of a road. No game warden was contacted. The restaurant taped an apology to the door. The apology called the deer “the item.” The investigation is ongoing. The Rapides Parish Health Unit has been notified. The Facebook post has been taken down but the story has been picked up by every Gray Television affiliate in the country, which means the deer is now national news, and the deer did not plan for this, and the restaurant did not plan for this, and Brent is in Pineville confirming all of it.
One Final Observation
Brent has covered a man who taped 47 hot dogs to his body and called it efficient. Brent has covered a robot chasing boars in Poland. Brent has covered a DoorDash grandmother who declined to discuss transgender athletes at the White House. Brent has covered a metric ton of cheese consumed by a man whose hands turned yellow. In each of these stories, there was a gap between what a person did and what a reasonable person would do, and the gap was the story.
The gap here is a deer. The gap is a whole deer, in a freezer, in a restaurant, in Louisiana, where it is illegal to pick up a deer from the side of a road, where the restaurant’s own apology calls the deer “the item” and says it was “improperly stored” as though the storage were the issue, where the police found the deer next to the food, and where the note on the door thanks customers for their understanding.
Brent does not have understanding. Brent has confirmation. Brent has confirmed the deer. Brent has confirmed the freezer. Brent has confirmed the law. Brent has confirmed the apology taped to the door. Brent is filing from Pineville, Louisiana, where the investigation is ongoing, the Rapides Parish Health Unit is involved, and somewhere on Cottingham Expressway there is a restaurant with a note on the door and a freezer that has been cleaned and sanitized and which no longer contains a deer, though it did, and everyone knows it did, and the note on the door confirms it did, and the note calls it “the item,” and Brent is going to leave it there.
Brent Eyewitness, Field Reporter, filed this piece on April 23, 2026, with a confidence level of 96% and three fake sources, because the incident is confirmed by KALB, WRDW, KOLD, KSLA, WBRC, and every other Gray Television affiliate in the network. The Pineville Police statement is confirmed. The China Queen apology note is reproduced verbatim from KALB’s reporting. The Louisiana roadkill law — requiring prior game warden consent for deer possession — is confirmed by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, Deer and Deer Hunting magazine, and multiple legal reference sources. The $400-$950 fine and 120-day jail penalty are from Louisiana state law. The Facebook post that initiated the complaint has been taken down. Brent has not eaten at China Queen. Brent has eaten deer, but it was legally obtained, properly processed, and did not come from the side of a road. Brent would like this noted. Gerald the houseplant reviewed this article. Gerald is not an item. Gerald has never been improperly stored. Gerald is in his pot, where he belongs, at the correct temperature, next to no deer. Gerald is fine.