ATM Customer Makes Startling Discovery at Bank

Nature's masked 'bandits' had broken in to a California Chase and were wreaking havoc
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 22, 2020 11:09 AM CDT

Some faces were made for radio; others were made for breaking into banks. CBS San Francisco and KPIX report that a customer was using an ATM outside a Chase bank in Redwood City, Calif., around 7:30am Tuesday morning when he saw what he thought was a stuffed animal on top of a desk inside. Until it moved, that is. Turns out there were two young raccoons that had somehow found their way in, and they were making quite a mess of things, knocking over computer monitors, throwing papers onto the floor, and noshing on almond cookies. The ATM customer called the Peninsula Humane Society & SPCA, which then contacted bank managers who could give its staffers access.

"It's not every day an animal organization gets called to deal with a bank break-in, but since the bank robbers were masked bandits of the wildlife kind, we were indeed the appropriate responders," says PHS/SPCA spokesperson Buffy Martin Tarbox, adding that rescuers spent 10 minutes chasing the raccoons around the bank before they were able to nudge them outside. The PHS/SPCA, which KGO notes rescues thousands of domestic and wild animals annually, suspects the raccoons got onto the bank's roof by climbing up a tree, entered the air ducts, and broke through the ceiling tiles into the bank proper. "Thankfully the raccoons were not injured during their morning escapade, and to our knowledge they didn't abscond with any money," Tarbox says. (More weird crimes stories.)

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