Brooklyn Is on High Alert, Because of an 'Aggressive Squirrel'

squirrel attack brooklyn
Shutterstock | Twitter Screengrab
Shutterstock | Twitter Screengrab

This is not a drill. The Brooklyn neighborhood of Park Slope is on red alert after a Prospect Park squirrel attacked five people in five days between July 18 and 20. 

The five people known to have been bitten were all attacked near the park entrance at Parkside and Ocean Avenues.

As nuts as it sounds, the Health Department has issued a warning. It is encouraging anyone who was bitten and has not reported it, to seek medical attention for potential rabies exposure. Based on the squirrel's behavior, officials are assuming the squirrel is rabid even though it's not sure whether or not the animal is rabid. 

One of the squirrel's victims, Leku Percival, recorded himself feeding a squirrel near the area of the other attacks. Naturally, he was bitten. Percival says he believes it's the same squirrel because, though it only nipped him in the video, he was later attacked. 

click to play video
Leku Percival

Obviously, you shouldn't feed squirrels in the area of Brooklyn's biting tree rat. 

Meanwhile, online, there is no shortage of people joking about the oddity of the situation.  

While people make jokes online, 50-year-old Brooklyn resident Luis Galdan is just carrying on as though there isn't a squirrel attempting to bring Brooklyn to its knees. “I’m a big man. I can kill it and eat it,” he told the Daily News. “Why not? We eat them back home.”

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Dustin Nelson is a News Writer with Thrillist. He holds a Guinness World Record but has never met the fingernail lady. Follow him @dlukenelson.