Piercing, terrible screams shook Roddy Muir out of his sleep at about 5:30 a.m. Wednesday.

“It sounded like a young child was being thrown around — and I could hear this banging and racket,” says Muir, 43, who lives on Campbell Ave., near Bloor St. W. and Lansdowne Ave.

“I ran into the back of my yard,” said Muir, a voice actor who had fallen asleep on a couch on the main floor of his house.

What he saw was a familiar sight.

Last summer, behind his house, Muir saw a man attack raccoons with a pronged implement. In that incident, he said, he saw the man stab at raccoons on the ground and puncture them so they were screaming.

“I yelled at him,” said Muir, who saw the raccoons run off. He described it as “surreal” and he didn’t report the incident, hoping it wouldn’t happen again.

But when he heard the screams again on Wednesday, he feared something similar was happening.

Muir said he saw one baby raccoon cowering on the ground.

A man swung a spade at another baby raccoon on a fence, knocking it to the ground and hitting it a number of times with the shovel, he said.

The baby raccoon was screaming. Muir was beside himself. This time, he intervened.

“I was swearing my head off. I said, ‘What are you doing? I told him he was a f---ing psycho.”

The animal was screaming and in such agony, Muir told the man to kill it and put it out of its misery.

Muir said the man looked at him and said, “I’m not going to kill it.”

“I said, ‘Why are you doing this?’ ” Muir recounted. “He swept his arm around and said ‘They’re destroying my garden.’ ”

Muir said he told the man he was going to grab his cellphone and call police. The dispatcher could hear the injured raccoon’s screams.

Meanwhile, he said, the mother raccoon was nearby — he thinks she had three other babies with her.

She came down to the injured, crying baby that had been hit with the spade and picked it up. “It was still alive but it was really smushed and flopping around and crying,” Muir said.

The raccoon and its baby got away.

A man was arrested after police arrived on the scene.

A baby raccoon was taken to Toronto Animal Services and supervisor Fiona Venedam said it should recover. The tiny animal fractured several toes and may have a broken leg, she said.

“He’s a pretty feisty little guy,” she said. By late Wednesday, the raccoon was well enough to be transferred to Procyon Wildlife Veterinary and Rehabilitation Services in Beeton, Ont.

Animal Services hopes to eventually release the raccoon back into the same area.

Later on Wednesday, Muir said he saw the mother raccoon come back.

“It looked like she was looking for her baby . . . it tore my heart out,” he said.

Dong Nguyen, 53, of Rankin Cres., whose backyard abuts Muir’s, has been charged with cruelty to animals and possessing a dangerous weapon. No one responded to knocks on the door of Nguyen’s home.

Neighbours who live on Nguyen’s street had only good things to say about him on Wednesday.

Don Westacott, 53, who lives several houses away, has known Nguyen for a number of years and has always found him pleasant. He, Nguyen and other neighbours lived together in a nearby apartment building before they bought new semi-detached homes on the street about a decade ago.

Nguyen is very devoted to his garden, Westacott said. “He’s always out looking after his plants — they’re like his kids.”

Westacott said raccoons are real pests in the neighbourhood, always getting into garbage.

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Nguyen is scheduled to appear in court on July 13.

They’re a wild bunch and they’ve got as much protection from harmful eviction as you do.

It’s easy to stop them from getting inside but they’re difficult to remove once they’ve set up house in your roof, walls and under the porch.

Pest control firms must follow the provincial law that protects wildlife such as raccoons, squirrels and skunks from harm — even when they cause homeowner havoc.

“The law states you are not allowed to take them more than a kilometre from where they are trapped and, obviously, you can’t kill them,” said Iris Roth, co-owner of Delta Pest Control Inc., a family-owned Toronto area firm that’s been in the business since 1959.

She said getting raccoons out of your home involves placing a one-way door at the animal’s point of entry so they can get out, but not back in.

If they are trapped in a cage, food and water must be provided. If raccoon pups have been separated from their mother they must be fed and cannot be removed until they are six weeks old.

“As soon as they are trapped and we get a call from the homeowner we have to pick it up. If there’s a full nest and the mother comes out we have to put the babies in a box near the house or the mother will take apart the roof to get back in,” Roth said.

The cost for the removal of one to three raccoons with a one-year guarantee they won’t come back is about $375.

Removal of parents and a large litter can cost $1,000 or more.

This is the busiest time of year for pest control firms as all wildlife is in breeding and nurturing mode, which means critters like raccoons are foraging to feed their broods.

“We get quite a few calls this time of year because the young are being born and they’re coming out of their nests,” said Fiona Venedam, supervisor with Toronto Animal Services.

She said there does not appear to be more complaints than usual this season and notes the arrest of someone accused of harming raccoons is rare in Toronto.

“This is probably the first cruelty complaint — where wildlife is concerned — I’ve heard of in the last 10 to 15 years,” Venedam said.

However, Toronto Police Service confirms that a man was charged in 2003 with cruelty to animals after beating a raccoon and putting it in a dumpster. The raccoon in that instance was so badly injured it had to be euthanized.

Animal shelters will take in motherless babies and try to get them to wildlife rehabilitators who raise them until they’re old enough to go back into the wild. If not, they are euthanized at the shelter.

Raccoons, like all wild animals, are drawn to food sources but humans can easily deter them.

“Secure your garbage and remove the means for them to get into your house. Keep composters enclosed and don’t feed your pets outside,” Veredam suggests.

She said because they are natural climbers, raccoons get into roofs by scaling old ladder-style television antennas, overhanging tree branches and clawing and wedging their way between homes separated by a small gap.