A New York City Police Department sergeant has been placed on modified duty after the fatal shooting of an unarmed raccoon during a response to a report of suspicious activity on the boardwalk in the Rockaway Park section of Queens on Thursday, the New York Daily News reports.
Sgt Nicholas Henry fired at least three rounds at the animal as it was moving near the fence line adjacent to the beach at Beach 121st St in response to what he and other officers’ who responded had claimed was an aggressive charge at a group of people nearby. The bodycam footage released to the Daily News does not include the officers’ interactions with that group of people on the morning in question and the department did not respond to further questions about that detail.
A statement from the NYPD did however say the raccoon was then taken to the New York City Animal Care Centers shelter where it was pronounced dead on arrival. It’s not clear if veterinarians performed an autopsy and tested for rabies or if the remains were unceremoniously incinerated in the shelter’s crematorium without any such further investigation into the animal’s state of mind.