ALBANY — Coeymans police officers who used their official vehicles to kill a rabid raccoon will not face animal cruelty charges, the Albany District Attorney David Soares' office announced Thursday.

But the district attorney's office will work with the Mohawk Hudson Humane Society to provide training and equipment to all police departments in the county to deal with similar situations in the future, Soares said

The March 12 killing of the raccoon — part of which was recorded on video and posted online — in a busy parking lot triggered outrage over the method used to kill the creature but also generated support for the officers.

Soares' office said the police lacked equipment such as a catch pole, a net or a tranquilizer gun to deal with animals. Police had previously said they worried that using a firearm to kill the raccoon could jeopardize the lives of people in the shopping plaza where it was found.

"The only option they had was the use of the car," Soares said. "What I can say emphatically is the use of the vehicle to dispatch a rabid animal is not the best option, however in the use of the vehicle as the option we found it did not meet the elements that would justify a formal prosecution."

The officers also faced the possibility of a two-hour wait for a state environmental conservation officer to arrive to deal with the animal.

"Based on facts of the event, the conclusion is that the officers did not act with malice or contempt, and acted with the public's well-being in mind," the DA's office wrote in a report released Thursday.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation had already decided no criminal charges will be filed in the case. It was unclear if the Coeymans police department conducted an internal investigation of its own.

Soares' animal cruelty task force handled his office's investigation.

Todd Cramer, president of the Mohawk Hudson Humane Societ,y said he supported the district attorney's decision in the case and would help set up training for police.

"We're in the process of lining up speakers," he said. "We can't change the outcome for this raccoon but we can certainly work hard to collaborate to make sure it doesn't happen again."

The videos show two police cars — one a marked sport utility vehicle, the other an unmarked sedan — purposely trying to strike the raccoon as it attempts to flee. The videos have garnered more than 7 million views on Facebook.

Tests conducted March 13 at the state Rabies Laboratory, located at the Wadsworth Center's Griffin Laboratory in Guilderland, confirmed the animal was rabid, a state Department of Health spokeswoman said.

The animal was initially spotted four hours before police killed it.

According to town police, someone called 911 at about 8:50 a.m. to report an apparently sick raccoon near Faith Plaza, which is located on Route 9W in Ravena. Patrol officers arrived to find the animal hiding under a loading dock, out of reach. The animal appeared to pose no danger, so police said they left it alone.

A witness told the District Attorney's office that he spotted the raccoon walking toward him in the parking lot after he left a drug store at midday. The raccoon, he said, did not seem to fear him. The animal appeared rabid and the witness warned others about the animal as they walked out of the CVS.

The report says another witness tried to feed the animal breakfast cereal while it hid behind a parking lot trash can.

The officer who initially saw the raccoon returned to the parking lot, the report says, and tried to throw snow at the animal to scare it off. A call was made to the sheriff's department, but Coeymans police were told the agency did not handle animal complaints.

"The standard method of dispatching a rabid animal is by utilizing a firearm," the report states. "But based on their training and experience, the officers did not feel it was safe to shoot the animal in a highly populated area with a concrete ground. They feared the bullet would ricochet and injure a civilian."

"They attempted to coax the animal to a more open area of the parking lot in an effort to alleviate any threat to bystanders. When all other options to lure the animal away from the Plaza failed, they ran over the animal with their vehicles until it was deceased."

Soares said the officers involved and the Coeymans police department have received threats in the aftermath of the incident.

A previous version of this story incorrectly said officers were told it would be a two-hour wait for DEC officers to arrive on scene. The two hour wait was how long it would take for officers to come to the scene to collect the animal after it was dead.