SAN FRANCISCO, July 7 (Reuters) - More than 200 goats needlessly suffocated to death in an overturned livestock trailer near San Francisco because police would not let their herder free them, their owner said on Saturday.

"They were screaming, screaming, screaming to get out,' said Terri Oyarzun, owner of Goats R Us, an Orinda, California, company that rents goats for grazing brush that poses fire hazards. "They died because the police wouldn't let them out of the trailer."

In all 243 goats died on Friday after the four-tier truck trailer transporting them flipped when the truck's driver made a sharp turn on a street in San Rafael, California, a town in Marin County north of San Francisco.

Police at the scene were so concerned with controlling traffic and preventing another accident that they disregarded pleas by the goat's herder to free the trapped animals, which could have been corralled away from traffic, Oyarzun said.

"Those goats didn't have die," she said. "It wasn't necessary. We had herding dogs."

About 150 goats survived, Oyarzun said.

A police spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.

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