A bear was euthanized after it wandered into a New Jersey Dollar General store and bit a 90-year-old woman before being led outside by a patron, authorities in Vernon Township said Wednesday.
The 175-pound female black bear was first spotted “behaving erratically and moving in and out of traffic” Tuesday morning alongside Route 94, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection told the Bergen Record. Police fired rubber bullets at it, and the bear bolted into the woods.
The banished bear emerged from the trees at about 1:40 p.m., which is when someone near the Dollar General reported a “nuisance bear” lurking. Police shooed it away again and reported the incident to New Jersey Fish and Wildlife, authorities said.
A little more than two hours later, at 3:55 according to police, the undaunted ursine was at it once more, this time upping its game by actually entering the Dollar General, according to a store employee’s 911 call. At about the same time, the owner of a nearby business called 911 to report the bear had attacked his dog and chased two employees. Just then the Dollar General employee told dispatch the bear had “made contact” with a shopper.
That turned out to be a 90-year-old woman who had what looked like a “bite or scratch mark on her leg,” police said, deeming it a “minor injury.” She was sent to the hospital by ambulance, and the dog’s owner took the canine to the vet.
Meanwhile, the Dollar General worker evacuated shoppers while local realtor Sean Clarkin, who was in the store at the time, ushered the bear outside with the help of a strategically placed shopping cart. He filmed the feat on his phone, walking backward in front of the animal as they wound through the aisles, Clarkin coaxing and guiding the bear in a stream-of-consciousness narrative occasionally laced with profanity. The video later made its way to social media.
Once the bear had been ushered to the parking lot, police followed it across the street.
“Based on the incident, the officers euthanized the bear as per the NJ Fish and Wildlife response criteria for category 1 bears,” the police said in their statement, noting “category 1” indicated bears deemed to threaten public safety and property.
