“What the hell is that?” asked an area man as he spotted the furry creature huddled beneath a metal fence of a residential building in Bushwick. Another younger person put it more bluntly, “That’s wack.” In a neighborhood that sees all sorts of horrors—usually involving the human kind—it was interesting to see the varied responses an out of place possum was eliciting near the corner of Flushing and Sumner Avenues this morning.


The nocturnal creature was visibly shaking and didn’t seem to be enjoying all the attention as passers-by whipped out their cell phones to get a picture. One guy even used an iPad to get a shot of the marsupial, clanging a garbage can in the process and frightening the possum so much that it retreated to the top of a pizza box.


Earlier, a tenant in the building said he called 911, but when the police came, they brushed the matter aside and told the man to just leave the critter alone. A woman walking briskly by didn’t want anything to do with it. “They don’t belong here, this ain’t the suburbs,” she said.


Here’s some raw video of the crowd-stopping beast and some tips should you encounter one.(Video/Photos: ANIMALNewYork)