Yesterday I'm helping a neighbor fix his fence. About 6 PM a police officer and animal control show up. Turns out there is a raccoon in a tree, someone called the police or animal control because it was eating some eggs up in a nest. I'm no expert, but it didn't appear rabid, it was way afraid of everyone looking at it up in the tree.

Officer Cletus decides it's gotta be killed, so he's shooting at it with a .38. He fired 2 or 3 shots at it in the tree about 25' away. My guess is he missed, as I stopped by over an hour later and the critter was still climbin around. Big succer too. Then they decide to get him by sawing down the limb that he's on, and shoot him if they have to. I tell the officer I have a .223 rifle he can borrow if he needs to, but he gives a no and a casual look like I'm some kind of retard.

.223 would have been perfectly safe, as lake Ontario is less than 1/4 mile away. Instead this guy thinks it was safer to saw down the limb, crash his ass on the ground, and shoot his .38 at it while it's on the ground, in a neighborhood full of kids and people looking on.

What irritates me is that we live next to a huge park and the woods. Guess what, there are critters living in the woods. The raccoon wasn't bothering any pets or people, or getting into garbage. It was just getting food. If the raccoon had to be capped, at least do it right. A 52 gr .223 hollow point would have been much better than the 2 hour ordeal possibly being wounded and falling 25 ft. out of a tree. I think it woulda looked about right if the officer was swillin on a bottle of Jim Beam while shooting his nickel .38 at the big raccoon...  [rolleyes]

To be fair to the police I ran into one a few weeks ago that was really cool, and seemed like a good guy. They are just like everyone else, you run into good ones, and then you run into idiots.