I've seen the Facebook video, I've seen the Facebook posts. I didn't go looking for them, they were forwarded to me about Atmore Mayor Jim Staff killing a raccoon with a shovel.
I've seen the photoshopped photos of Staff with a coon skin hat on his head and others that are either poking fun at him or really mad at him for beating the raccoon to death with a shovel. I guess politicians make good targets for social media.
I've had several people ask me if Staff would be on my front page today.
But to be honest, I'd have done the same thing. I would of killed that raccoon too. You can hear a woman screaming that it was a friendly raccoon that hung around the boat ramp in Gulf Shores. The only part of the video posted on Facebook is Staff tossing the dead raccoon off in the bushes. The woman yells that people around the boat ramp feed the raccoon – Bingo. If anybody is at fault it is the people who tried to domesticate a wild animal.
What's not shown on video, like a lot of videos that go viral on social media, are the events that led up to Staff taking his shovel and killing the raccoon.
Staff said he and his wife were about to launch the boat at the landing. His wife got out of the passenger side of the truck and she screamed. She said the raccoon ran toward her, she jumped back into the truck and the raccoon attempted to follow her into the truck.
Staff first threw a stick at the raccoon and it went toward some garbage cans. Staff grabbed a shovel from the back of the truck and the raccoon began running at him.
“He wasn't looking for something to eat,” Staff told me.
So, like most normal people would do, Staff knocked the raccoon across the top of its head. Granted, he had to hit it a few more times before he killed the animal.
Staff said he grabbed the shovel after throwing the stick because he didn't know what the raccoon was going to do next. The next thing the raccoon did was run toward Staff. Bad mistake for the raccoon, but I still say Staff did the same thing I would have done if I had a shovel in the back of my truck.
Raccoons are cute little creatures but the majority of rabies cases in the United States start with raccoon bites. It's either from a rabid raccoon biting a human or a rabid raccoon biting a dog, who in turn bites the human.
I've talked to veterinarians over the years and they've always told me there is no cure for a person who gets rabies; they will die. Now there are shots and treatments that can be taken after a bite, but once there, it's there.
While talking with Staff he asked me if I had ever seen what a raccoon could do to a dog? I said yes. Back in my younger days a bunch of friends and I used to go coon hunting with an old man. We didn't learn until later that the only reason he took us when we were 9 or 10-years old was to carry his coons out of the swamp in the middle of the night. We thought it was fun at the time. I did see a raccoon rip the ear off of one his coon dogs.
Was the raccoon Staff killed rabid? I don't know, but if a raccoon runs at me I hope I either have a shovel, golf club, baseball bat or a gun in my hand.
I also have to wonder what would have happened if Staff had a young grandchild with him at the boat ramp. I'm sure a child would be fascinated with a cute raccoon and try to reach out and pet it. It wouldn't be cute when when that raccoon attacked that child.
Staff did nothing wrong and didn't do anything I, or most of you, would have done. Social media is having fun with it, but it wouldn't be a laughing matter if that raccoon attacked someone.
If I was Staff, I'd wear a coon skin hat to the next council meeting so the next photo on Facebook won't have to be photoshopped.
