Kentucky man known as Cowboy Cody released raccoon into packed restaurant in misguided revenge plot: Seen some crazy stuff

This masked bandit didn’t come to steal – he came to bite. A Kentucky man known as “Cowboy Cody” let loose a terrified raccoon in a bar out of revenge for being turned away from the establishment Friday night, according to police and a bartender who witnessed the incident.Police arrested Jonathan Mason, 40, on a slew of charges including assault after he released a raccoon into The Big Apple Grill and Bar in the city of Murray, according to a police press release. “Apparently he had trapped a raccoon earlier in the day on his farm and he had been carrying it around with him,” a restaurant bartender, Mary Hafner, told The Post.“I’m a bartender, so you know I’ve seen some crazy stuff in my time.

But nothing like this.”Mason, dubbed “Cowboy Cody” by locals, lives alone on a nearby farm and has caused trouble in the past at local bars, employees told The Post. Hafner, 37, who has worked at The Big Apple for five years, said Mason was already drinking when she encountered him Friday night.

The bar had previously banned him over a drunken mule incident.Mason always liked her, Hafner said, and she thought she could convince him to leave without causing a scene.“I came out from around the bar and asked him nicely to leave,” said Hafner.

“He said to me, ‘oh I see how it is, they sent a pretty face out here to distract me.’”Initially, Mason complied without complaint. “At first I was like whew, I defused a big issue,” she said.But moments later he returned – armed with a raccoon, Hafner claimed.She said the raccoon waddled into the crowded restaurant as customers looked on in confusion.“It was more scared than anything,” she said of the raccoon.“It was pretty upsetting for him.”Hafner told her fellow employees to let her handle the raccoon, but another employee didn’t listen and tried to snatch the furry fiend by his tail.

It bit him, she said, and he had to get rabies shots. So Hafner took over.She calmly grabbed ...