Sheriff’s deputies in Alabama encountered one of the most terrifyingly bizarre surprises of their careers on Monday during a drug bust in Limestone County.
Upon serving a warrant at an Athens, Alabama, apartment, deputies found methamphetamines, ammunition, body armor and (I can’t believe I’m typing this) a methed-up “attack squirrel” that one of the occupants, Mickey Paulk, kept in a cage inside the dwelling.
According to AL.com, sheriff’s spokesman Stephen Young explained that deputies had been made privy to the potential of a drug-fueled squirrel in the apartment, prior to the raid.
“Prior to the search warrant, investigators were informed that Mickey Paulk kept an ‘attack squirrel’ inside his apartment, and that Paulk fed the squirrel meth to keep it aggressive,” Young said.
Young reported that the squirrel was released into a nearby wooded area after receiving guidance on the issue from state conservation officials.
WOW. One arrested, one sought by @LimestoneCoSO accused of keeping an “attack squirrel” inside apt, feeding it meth to keep it aggressive.
The squirrel was inside a cage, and released by deputies.
"There was no safe way to test the squirrel for meth." @stephendyoung05
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Sheriff Mike Blakely’s office said in a press release that “There was no safe way to test the squirrel for meth.”
Ronnie Reynolds, a 37-year-old man, was also arrested at the scene and was hit with a list of charges including possession of controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia and loitering in a drug house.
Paulk, the 35-year-old keeper of tweaked attack squirrels, was not in the apartment at the time of the raid and is still wanted by law enforcement on multiple charges.
Frankly, Paulk might also need to be worried about PETA, since the insane squirrel story went viral. They’ve gone after folks for much less.
While it’s fun, in a weird way, to report on a drug-addled attack squirrel, the scary part of this story is that it further highlights the rampant illegal drug problem America faces today.
There was a time in recent history when, yeah, drugs were obviously a serious problem, but many drugs were sort of reserved for those with disposable income. Why? Because they were expensive.
But now, with Mexican cartels utilizing cutting-edge technology and increasingly sneaky methods of importing opioids into America, the nasty addiction has been opened up to many more people.
And more drugs means more people dying as a result of overdoses.
According to DrugAbuse.gov, 70,237 Americans died in 2017 of a drug overdose caused by illegal narcotics and prescription opioids.
President Donald Trump continues to recognize the exploding epidemic of opioid abuse and has already taken measures to fight it, including declaring a national public health emergency on the crisis in 2017, according to WhiteHouse.gov.
In 2018, the Trump administration rolled out the “Initiative to Stop Opioid Abuse,” which involves reducing the over-prescription of opioids, bolstering support programs for addicts and their families and perhaps most importantly, cracking down on the international drug lords who keep bringing the poison into America.
Hopefully Trump’s initiative and the efforts of many other organizations can eventually make a noticeable dent in the crisis — one that’s ruining so many lives so needlessly.
If we’re at the point where cops have to worry about encountering attack animals that are being fed drugs, something has definitely gone very wrong in our country.
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