This is what you call a doorcrasher.
A downtown Toronto drug store got an unexpected customer when a raccoon cub crashed through a ceiling vent and became stranded between two glass doors within the building's entrance early Thursday morning.
Toronto police officers were called in to rescue the scared animal at a Shoppers Drug Mart at Yonge and Charles streets at about 2:30 a.m.
The store was closed at the time.
When the raccoon fell into the entryway it set off a burglar alarm, but police found a much smaller break-and-enter suspect than they were expecting when they responded to the alarm. But the little critter had to wait to taste freedom again because it took a couple hours for a store manager to arrive and open the front door.
As police officers and media waited, a second raccoon cub fell from an awning above the store and landed on the sidewalk. It took cover nearby.
The cubs are believed to be about six to eight weeks old. The pair's mother, appearing a bit frantic, paced back and forth above the store, where a third cub was spotted.
After a store manager arrived to unlock the door, a police officer used a monopod – an extendable pole used to steady a camera – borrowed from CP24 cameraman Tom Stefanac to corral the young raccoon into a milk crate and release it on the sidewalk, where it scurried to a hiding spot with its sibling, which appeared to be limping after the fall.
The raccoons spent more than an hour hiding between a newspaper stand and the wall of a neighbouring business until a citizen placed them in a cardboard box and then helped them onto the drug store's roof, where they eventually reunited with their mother.
Click here to view a photo gallery of the trapped raccoon.
Raccoon family invades house
This was at least the second time this month Toronto police have had to deal with "masked" intruders of a different kind.
Earlier this month, a homeowner called police after a family of raccoons invaded his house on Columbine Avenue, near Woodbine Avenue and Kingston Road, in the middle of the night.
An officer used a cardboard box and a broom to shoo the mother and her two babies down the stairs and out the door.
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