Police in Lindsay, Ont., say safety was a top priority after an officer used a shovel to dispatch a raccoon last week, prompting some public backlash.
According to the Kawartha Lakes Police Service, around 3:30 p.m. on Friday, April 12, officers responded to Lindsay Street South for reports of a raccoon in the area that was either injured or possibly rabid.
One report came from April Oake, who was alerted of the animal’s presence by the family dog Jack. She and her husband Kemp say they discovered a raccoon with a “big gash” on its head stumbling in the middle of the street.
Oake believes the animal was not rabid.
“We knew something was wrong by the docile and passive behaviour,” she said.
“It was injured — it got hit by a car or something,” added Kemp. “Because it kept going back and forth in the traffic, it looked like it would get hit by a car again and she (April) didn’t know what to do, so she called the police.”
The police service declined an interview and instead issued a statement to Global News. In an email, Sgt. Deb Hagarty says when officers arrived, they determined the animal needed to be euthanized as it was “deemed to be a threat to public safety.”
Hagarty says a “normal course of action” would be to use a firearm to dispatch the animal. However, she said due to heavy foot and vehicle traffic in the area, officers determined using a firearm was “not a safe option.”
“The probability of a ricochet of the projectile was too great a hazard to both the citizenry, and property in the area.”
Officers first attempted to use an animal control pole to contain the raccoon but it was “not safe” to try to capture the animal, Hagarty noted.
She said officers decided that using a shovel to dispatch the raccoon would be “the safest option.”
The incident has sparked backlash on social media, with multiple people questioning whether the officers acted humanely.
Kemp claims one officer first lassoed the animal and pulled it out from underneath the porch of a home. He says another officer then hit the raccoon multiple times in the head before taking the carcass to a truck.
“It was lassoed, so it was subdued — then the first cop hit it over the head with a shovel two or three times, then he started whacking it,” said Kemp. “I don’t know how many times he whacked it — maybe six, eight, 12 times. And the raccoon was just freaking, obviously, because it was being killed.”
April says she has been “sick to her stomach” since the incident and questions the officers’ actions given it was a public area with children.
Her husband agrees.
“I think there were other alternatives they probably could have went to,” he said.
One alternative he suggested is the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry. Global News has requested comment from the ministry.
Hagarty says the service recognizes the officers’ response has caused “some concern among the community.”
“Our officers acted without malice or disrespect to the animal when they made this decision as it was felt to be the safest option in the circumstances,” she said.
More to come.
— with files from Tricia Mason/Global News Peterborough
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