The Possum Never Stood A Chance

A frightened possum refused to move from the doorway of a downtown business — until two cops worked together to remove it.

The possum found itself between a door and a cop car Wednesday, as clouds rolled in over downtown.

After noticing the animal pressed up against the front door of DelMonico Hatter sometime around 11:30 a.m., Elm Street business owner Vincent F. Ferrucci called Ben DelMonico, who was preparing shipments of hats for the day’s postal pickup.

DelMonico was concerned that the possum, having wedged itself between the front door and a neighboring wall, might have rabies. He called the police department’s animal control division and got a voicemail message. So he tried the New Haven Police Department’s main number instead.

Officer Roger Kergaravat was the first to respond, pulling up in front of the store within minutes of the call. He realized the case was going to take backup, he said. Animal control would know whether the animal was rabid, and be able to better assess the situation. Waiting for backup, Kergaravat warily watched the possum from where it sat by a stack of cardboard, hat-filled boxes. No one came out of the store. At a nearby nail salon and taco shop just down the street, a few curious onlookers gathered curiously, and waited for help to arrive.

They didn’t have to wait long. Emerging from a large blue van with a cage and long pole, Animal Control Officer Nicole Minervini arrived, surveyed the space, approached the possum with gloved hands and a tender, almost-cooing call.

“Come on,” she said. ​“Come on.” She lowered a collar around the possum’s neck, and began to pull with the pole. It hissed, short, clawed paws flying out in each direction. As it put up resistance, literally hovering over DelMonico’s two-step entrance, Officer Kergaravat stepped in, steadying the cage.

The possum continued to fight, spreading its short legs ever wider and hooking its tail on the front of the cage. Unable to close the cage’s slatted door, Minervini tried to reason with the animal.

“Don’t grab on with your tail,” she pleaded. ​“Don’t grab on with your tail. That’s never helpful.”

She turned the cage on its side and tried to get the tail into the cage. The possum screamed from inside.

“I know!” Minervini said. ​“It’s aggravating to me too.”

After 30 more seconds of coaxing, the possum was at last in its cage; the door closed. A woman who had been squealing from the side of the street, dragging her fingers through her hair as she watched, hopped in her car to drive away. Business as usual resumed inside the store.

Outside, Minervini sympathized with the possum, who had likely come outdoors because of the overcast weather. She said she could not tell whether it was male or female, but was sure that it was not rabid.

“People should not be afraid of them,” she said of the overwhelmingly bad rep that the gentle, misunderstood marsupials receive. ​“They actually eat a lot of insects, and they won’t hurt you.”

Interviewed from the cage, the shaking possum said it was horribly misunderstood, and had just been trying to get some time outdoors before New Haven’s oppressively hot summer months.

“I just can’t get a goddamn break,” it hissed.