This masked bandit didn’t come to steal – he got here to chunk.
A Kentucky man generally known as “Cowboy Cody” let unfastened a terrified raccoon in a bar out of revenge for being turned away from the institution Friday evening, in accordance with police and a bartender who witnessed the incident.
Police arrested Jonathan Mason, 40, on a slew of fees together with assault after he launched a raccoon into The Large Apple Grill and Bar within the metropolis of Murray, in accordance with a police press launch.
“Apparently he had trapped a raccoon earlier within the day on his farm and he had been carrying it round with him,” a restaurant bartender, Mary Hafner, advised The Submit.
“I’m a bartender, so you understand I’ve seen some loopy stuff in my time. However nothing like this.”
Mason, dubbed “Cowboy Cody” by locals, lives alone on a close-by farm and has triggered bother previously at native bars, workers advised The Submit.
Hafner, 37, who has labored at The Large Apple for 5 years, stated Mason was already consuming when she encountered him Friday evening. The bar had beforehand banned him over a drunken mule incident.
Mason all the time favored her, Hafner stated, and she or he thought she may persuade him to depart with out inflicting a scene.
“I got here out from across the bar and requested him properly to depart,” stated Hafner. “He stated to me, ‘oh I see how it’s, they despatched a fairly face out right here to distract me.’”
Initially, Mason complied with out criticism.
“At first I used to be like whew, I defused a giant problem,” she stated.
However moments later he returned – armed with a raccoon, Hafner claimed.
She stated the raccoon waddled into the crowded restaurant as clients appeared on in confusion.
“It was extra scared than something,” she stated of the raccoon. “It was fairly upsetting for him.”
Hafner advised her fellow workers to let her deal with the raccoon, however one other worker didn’t hear and tried to grab the furry fiend by his tail. It bit him, she stated, and he needed to get rabies pictures.
A video exhibits the worker crawling on the ground chasing after the raccoon as he weaves his means by tables and chairs.
The raccoon then bites the employee on his hand because the wild animal makes a shrieking growl.
However Hafner was capable of lure the critter onto a chair the place she casually wraps him in a towel and heads for the exit.
“I’m no metropolis slicker,” Hafner stated. “I’m a Kentucky woman. I had no downside catching him.”
The employee who was bitten needed to get rabies pictures, Hafner stated.
This was not the primary time Mason was concerned in an animal-related crime.
Final winter, Mason was arrested – twice – for main cops on a wild, drunken chase by metropolis streets on a mule. Large Apple workers needed to name the police on Mason when he allegedly beat the animal with a whip within the car parking zone.
Mason led police on a drunken chase on the mule on the evening of Dec. 7, after which did it once more on Dec. 9, in accordance with police.
Mason refused to depart his automotive when officers pulled him over later that evening after releasing the raccoon, police stated,
He additionally wouldn’t roll down his home windows in order that the officers may query him, in accordance with the discharge.
Ultimately, cops positioned him below arrest.
Mason was booked into the Calloway County Jail and is going through fees of third-degree felony trespass, second-degree assault, resisting arrest and failure to keep up insurance coverage.
