'Rabid' Squirrel Terrorizing Brooklyn Caught On Video Mid-Bite

PROSPECT PARK, BROOKLYN — An "unusually aggressive" and "potentially rabid" squirrel currently on the loose in Prospect Park, who city officials say went on a ruthless biting rampage last week at the southeast end of the park, was apparently caught on video — mid-bite — by one of his five victims so far. (And there could be more victims yet, the city warned Friday.)

East Flatbush resident Leku Percival, 31, a marketing guru and Prospect Park regular, told various media outlets he shot the following video on a July 11 trip to the park.

In the video, since viewed by thousands, Percival offers a handful of peanuts to a sweet-looking squirrel he encounters near the park's entrance at Parkside and Ocean avenues. (A move which, while good-intentioned, was very much against city rules, according to NYC health officials. "Never feed wild animals," Health Commissioner Mary Bassett scolded in a recent press release.)

Little did Percival know, though: This wasn't just any old squirrel. Peanuts, it turned out, were the last thing on its mind.

"Yo, why are you gonna bite me like that?" Percival asks in the video as the squirrel sinks its tiny razor teeth into his fingertip.

And that was only the part he caught on tape. After the camera stopped rolling, "it jumped in the air at my hand, and it actually bit me," Percival told ABC7. "It bit me on my right thumb and scratched me on my arm."

A local 7-year-old named María Guerrero was reportedly targeted by the same squirrel in another attack days later. Her family provided ABC7 with some super gnarly photos of a bloody, gaping squirrel bite between her thumb and index finger:

The little girl's wound has since been closed up with stitches, and she's being treated for rabies as a precaution, according to ABC7.

But the traumatic memories could last a lifetime. "It kind of looked like a flying squirrel — he jumped on my arm and then he started to bite my arm," Guerrero recalled. Upon hearing her screams, she said her father darted to her side and "throwed" the squirrel off her. "But then it CAME BACK," the 7-year-old said — twice.

"I had no food! I had no food! I had nothing!" Guerrero wailed in her TV interview.

A spokesman for the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene would not confirm or deny whether Percival and Guerrero were among the five known victims of this "potentially rabid" squirrel the department has been warning people about. All official details about the victims were being kept under wraps Monday.

City health officials first alerted the public about the squirrel last Friday. "Based on the unusual aggressive behavior, the Health Department is acting under the assumption that the animal is rabid," officials said at the time.

And by Monday afternoon, the squirrel still hadn't been located, a Health Department spokesman told Patch.

However, the spokesman said, "If the squirrel had rabies, it is likely dead by now."

If the animal was indeed infected, the spokesman said, it would also go down in history as first the first rabid squirrel ever spotted in New York City.

On the other hand, if the little devil wasn't infected with rabies, we may have a bigger problem on our hands: evidence in Brooklyn of a new, never-before-seen breed of flying war squirrel with a taste for human flesh.

This story has been updated. Screenshot via Leku Percival/YouTube