Forget that whole trash panda stereotype. This raccoon had loftier goals Wednesday evening, perhaps with visions of unopened bags of chips and sandwiches that weren’t half-eaten and tossed into the trash.
Alas, that dream went unfulfilled.
Kouts Police Chief Mike Miller’s department got the most unusual call around 7:50 p.m. to the Save A Lot grocery store at 175 Main St. when a store employee said a raccoon had entered the store.
“It didn’t cause any type of damage,” Miller said on Thursday, adding that with the help of a store employee, “they were able to chase it and corral it out the door.”
Kouts resident Debbie Gruszka said via text that she stopped she stopped at the Save A Lot to grab a few groceries and noticed the town’s police car pulled up to the entrance with its lights shining in the entrance of the cart area.
“A couple kids were outside of their pickup and told me I couldn’t go in, there’s a raccoon inside,” she said. “It took quite some time as I waited and finally the policeman came up to my car saying it ran out.”
The officer told Gruszka, who shops at Save A Lot often, that the raccoon went outside and to the back of the store. She didn’t see the raccoon and let the officer and store employee do what they needed to get the animal safely outside.
“Poor little raccoon,” she said. “I’d think he was terrified.”
The whole thing was over in half an hour, tops, according to store manager Mary Grebec, who wasn’t working Wednesday night but heard about it. She viewed video surveillance and saw the raccoon in the parking lot but nothing captured the nocturnal mammal meandering into the store.
The masked bandit, it seems, avoided detection.
“It’s still kind of a mystery how it got in there,” Miller said.
Miller credited the store employee and officer who helped get the raccoon out of the store.
“That’s something you’re going to want to jump on real fast,” he said, speculating the raccoon came out of nearby woods and happened to time its entrance with when the door opened.
The officer who responded to the call, Miller said, noted the raccoon did not appear to have distemper.
“He was acting normally and he probably wanted to get out of there as soon as possible,” Miller said. “When I came in this morning and heard about it, I thought, are you kidding me? That’s a first.”
The store wasn’t that busy when the raccoon showed up, Grebec said, adding another manager helped the officer usher the raccoon out the door.
“It was strange,” she said. “Being out here in the country you see quite a bit of stuff out here but that’s a first for me.”
alavalley@chicagotribune.com