Masked Bandit Raccoons Arrested for Public Intoxication
The critters were suspected of carrying rabies, but turns out they were only wasted on apples.
Image: Milton Police Department/Facebook
When officers from the Milton, West Virginia, Police Department got a call about some oddly-behaved raccoons, their natural assumption was that the critters had rabies—a disease which causes hallucination and aggression in mammals.
Arriving on the scene, however, the police realized they would in fact be dealing with a very different sort of probable cause: drunk and disorderly conduct.
In a Facebook post from the Milton P.D. published earlier this week, the department explained that the raccoons seemed to have become intoxicated after eating too many fermented crabapples from a nearby tree.
Apparently the little masked bandits weren’t patient enough to turn the apples into cider.
According to the Washington Post, the animals were apprehended and put into a drunk tank for raccoons, where they were left to sober up. The arrest was a first for one Patrol Officer Scarberry.
Officers released the hungover raccoons back into the wild, though not before snapping a photo, shown above, of the one that they named “Dallas.”
The M.P.D. reminded residents to report any cases of disoriented raccoons. While these ones might have had a bit too much booze, others could be dangerous.
These raccoons were not the first animals who have accidentally gorged themselves on fermented, alcoholic fruit—oh no, far from it. For more stories of the sort, we would also refer you to the margarita-drinking bear in California, the liquor store-pilfering opossum or these hopped-up hedgehogs.
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