A racoon has been found playing with a meth pipe in a car during a traffic stop arrest in Ohio.
Victoria Vidal, 55, from Akron, Ohio, was charged with possession of drugs, three counts of possession of drug paraphernalia, and was cited for driving under suspension, Springfield Township police said in a statement on social media Tuesday.
Officers pulled Vidal over after running her license plate and finding that she had an active warrant and a suspended driver’s license.
The real surprise came when they looked in her car and “observed a raccoon named ‘Chewy’ sitting in the driver’s seat with a meth pipe in its mouth.”
Body camera footage of the traffic stop showed the moment the furry rodent was spotted fiddling with the pipe, after police removed Vidal from her vehicle.
“Oh..hey,” one officer in the footage was heard saying before breaking out in a fit of laughter and beckoning the second attending officer over for a look.
“The racoon has her meth pipe!” he said in disbelief.
“He’s playing with her meth pipe right now!”
An elderly woman who was in the car with Vidal attempted to grab the pipe from its mouth, but officers said it was needed for evidence.
“I don’t want him [the raccoon] to have that,” the elderly woman said.
The officer who first spotted the raccoon was audibly struggling to hold it together and was heard laughing, as he watched “Chewy” reach for the Methamphetamine pipe as he attempted to claw it from him.
“All right, enough fun and games,” he said to Chewy, before laughing again in shock.
Police confirmed that a search of the vehicle revealed a bulk of methamphetamine, crack cocaine and three used glass meth pipes.
“Chewy had somehow gotten hold of a glass methamphetamine pipe, leading officers to further inspect the vehicle,” the PD post wrote Tuesday.
Police confirmed that the animal was unharmed and that authorities were alerted to check whether Vidal had the proper paperwork to own Chewy.
“While our officers are trained to expect the unexpected, finding a raccoon holding a meth pipe is a first! No raccoons were hurt or injured in this incident,” Springfield Township PD wrote.
The 55-year-old will face additional charges related to crack cocaine possession at a Grand Jury pending drug lab results.
Vidal was detained and turned over to Cuyahoga Falls Police for her active warrant.
