LACEY, NJ — A video that circulated late last week showing a teen beating a raccoon to death is under investigation by state and local authorities, Lacey police said Tuesday.

The video, which was circulating on Twitter on Friday, showed the boy beating the raccoon with an aluminum bat while a second teenage boy took the video and egged the teen on. It shows the raccoon caught in a leg trap near a tree in a wooded area. While one teen hits the raccoon repeatedly, the other says, "Hit him! Hit him! Hit him hard now!" The video later was removed from Twitter because of its graphic content, according Cece, the Twitter user who initially posted the video. The post with the video had been retweeted hundreds of times and prompted comments from across the country.

Lacey Township Police Chief Michael C. DiBella said the police department was notified about the video about 3 p.m. on Friday.

He said officers from his department, along with the Ocean County prosecutor's office and the state Division of Fish and Wildlife, are investigating the matter.

Police declined to release further details and said more information will be released when the investigation has concluded. Cece said the video had been shared with multiple people by the teen and his friends via SnapChat before she posted it to Twitter on Friday, which she said she did to bring attention to the horrific nature of the act. A copy of the video also was forwarded to Patch.

On Friday evening, posters were vilifying the police department on Facebook, demanding answers about the video in comments on a police posting about an unrelated matter.

"What happened is barbaric, horrific and disgusting," Tim Cole from Britain wrote in a post on the police department's Facebook page. "The individual concerned ... should be made to account in accordance with the law."



DiBella asked anyone with information about the incident to contact Lacey Police Detective Adam Ewart at 609-693-6636, ext 2592.

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