NYPD capture squirrel after three-day rampage in pharmacy

The NYPD unleashed the full force of its Emergency Service Unit yesterday to go after a menace that took over a Harlem CVS for three days - a slippery squirrel. The elite squad - normally reserved for riots and hostage situations - pulled out all the stops to take down the hungry creature after it got stuck in a glass display case in the front window. The police used a dog bed to shove it into a small box and emerged victorious with the critter in hand. The rascally rodent had sneaked into the drugstore at West 116th Street and Lenox Avenue at 7:15 a.m. on Monday.



“He walked in like a customer,” one worker said. “I tried to shoo it away, but it ran into the store.” The 1-pound grey squirrel trolled the aisles for peanuts and potato chips but was unable to actually open any of the packages it had strewn about the floor. “I hadn’t seen him since Monday, so I had assumed he escaped, but this morning when I came in, there were signs of him. Bags of potato chips and cans of peanuts were all over the floor,” a worker said.

“He couldn’t open the bags or the peanuts. The peanuts were in a metal tin. The ones by the register are in plastic - he should have gone for those.” At about 9:30 a.m. yesterday, the squirrel was seen scampering over a shelf before getting trapped in the store’s front window case. The animal became a source of amusement for more than a dozen people outside as it tried to bound out of the empty glass case. “It was funny and sad because he just did not know what to do with himself. He was trying to analyze the situation and how to get out,” said area resident Randy Harrison, 62, who was going to the store for prescriptions.


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Store workers eventually called police, and the ESU was summoned to do its work. But it was not clear what became of the CVS squirrel. One worker said cops told him it would be released in a park. But a witness told workers she saw the squirrel escape from the box after it was out of the store. The NYPD had no comment.