Earlier in the week we featured the story about the viscous beating to death of a Raccoon in the woods of Lacey. The overwhelming public outcry indicates that that these juveniles were wrong, and should be prosecuted. However, OCPO has remained silent on the issue citing it is an investigation with juveniles, and they aren’t required to disclose the disposition of the incident. That makes the case unable to OPRA successfully, which means none of us will know the full disposition until (if ever) OCPO makes a press release.

Most of the page followers indicated this behavior is wrong and troublesome to society. One individual named Ron C. spoke up to defend the juveniles and insisting they did nothing wrong. He even cited NJ Laws that state an animal may be put out of its’ misery by blunt force when discharging a firearm isn’t possible. However, this law seems to be based on an animal stuck in a trap, which isn’t clear from the video. Ron became abusive to staff and vehemently defended the action, claiming the article was our opinion and not based on facts. We aren’t going to post the video again, you can go back and find it if you need to review it.

If indeed this Raccoon needed to be put down, we feel it was handled improperly by filming it in a glorified manner. A page supporter stepped forward to indicate this theory: “The problem is Fish Game and Wildlife aren’t able to prosecute criminal charges they can only give civil or administrative charges. So depending on who you speak to the law might be distinguished differently. But the bottom line is the death falls under title 4:22-17C (1) cruelly beat an animal crime of a third degree.”

We here at OCSN are NOT the law, and we are NOT a governmental agency. It is not our job to interpret laws, nor enforce them. If the wild Raccoon was injured or stuck in a trap, there was no need to make a video of it in the manner which it was recorded.

It would be nice to learn about the investigation, and how they were able to decide not to prosecute the juveniles. Since nobody is talking, and the Raccoon is dead, we might not get a resolution to the story.

Thoughts on the incident from the public? Were the juveniles wrong, or did this act fall under a sanctioned response to the incident? We are calling on the experts on the page, especially licensed hunters to chime in on the incident.