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According to investigators, the masked marauder chose the early morning hours of November 29 for his boozy adventure. Surveillance damage suggests he tumbled through the ceiling, panicked, barreled through the shelves, and discovered the bottom shelf liquor collection that ultimately knocked him unconscious.
The tiny burglar was discovered face down on the bathroom floor between the toilet and the trash can. Photos of the scene exploded online, showing the animal completely gone after helping himself to roughly 30 to 40 bottles.
Officer Martin confirmed the chaos. “He locked himself in the bathroom, passed out drunk, after he probably knocked over a good 30 to 40 bottles of liquor.”
Virginia ABC spokesman Billy Fellin added that fourteen bottles were recorded as officially destroyed, worth about 250 dollars. Some of the labels left behind hinted that the raccoon may have had refined taste, with whiskey and scotch among the casualties, including Jameson.
Martin gathered the extremely intoxicated suspect, secured him safely, and hauled him back to the shelter to sober up. The Hanover County Animal Protection and Shelter posted the incident on social media and labeled it a comedic “Black Friday Break In.”
Their post told the public exactly what happened in plain terms. “Officer Martin responded to a very unusual call at the Ashland ABC Store. Upon arrival, she discovered the suspect had broken in, ransacked several shelves, and then passed out in the bathroom. The suspect? A very intoxicated raccoon.”
Martin admitted she was laughing during transport. “Another day in the life of an animal control officer, I guess.”
Shelter workers monitored the furry troublemaker for several hours until he slept it off. He had no injuries aside from what staff jokingly described as “maybe a hangover and poor life choices.” Once sober, the raccoon was released into the wild and sent on his way with what the shelter humorously hoped was a valuable life lesson. “After a few hours of sleep and zero signs of injury (other than maybe a hangover and poor life choices), he was safely released back to the wild, hopefully having learned that breaking and entering is not the answer.”
The story quickly spread across the internet, bringing curious locals by the store just to see where the drunken raccoon made his stand. Even the shelter’s own chief, Jeffery Parker, was surprised by how much attention it received. “What I’m seeing on the post is a lot of ‘This is hilarious, is this actually true’ things along those lines, ‘Is this an April Fool’s joke?'”
But then the tale took a twist.
A nearby business, Rise Martial Arts, revealed they had their own masked intruder about a year earlier. Madison Blair remembered the damage vividly. “It was up in the crawl space, like in the ceiling, and it went through our break room, and it got into our snacks, it was all over the place.”
Parker confirmed that people are already speculating whether the liquor store menace and the martial arts snack thief are one and the same raccoon with a criminal streak.
Locals found humor in the whole ordeal. Ashley Brown, who stopped by to see the ABC store herself, said, “I thought it was just a generic viral post that happened somewhere else. I was stunned that it just happened up the street from our house.” Her daughter Quincy gave the raccoon a fitting nickname: “Racooney coon.”
Nearby worker Hunter Southall joked that the raccoon probably just snapped under pressure. “He must have been going through a lot of stuff. Must have just been too stressed out. Kids at home.”
Only in the United States could a raccoon break through a liquor store ceiling, get hammered on bottom shelf booze, knock out in the bathroom, and become a nationwide celebrity by doing exactly what far too many humans do after Thanksgiving weekend.
At least this bandit slept it off before animal control arrived. Whether he learned anything is another question entirely.
