A criminal at large, known only as “The Statesboro Sandwich Snatcher,” stole a meal directly from the hands of his victim.

The perpetrator, though generally nocturnal, committed the crime in the broad daylight of the Georgia Southern University campus. From the video, he appears to be a medium-sized furry mammal. Witnesses identify him as a raccoon.

Brandon Williams, junior logistics and marketing major, witnessed the whole event and shared it on Twitter.

{{tncms-inline account=”La_Veriteee” html=”<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Y’all talking about squirrels on college campuses, what are yalls Raccoons on y’all college campus like ? 😂😭😂😭 <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SouthernNotState?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SouthernNotState</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GSU?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#GSU</a> <a href="https://t.co/1GVrXWJQqh">pic.twitter.com/1GVrXWJQqh</a></p>— BTRW (@La_Veriteee) <a href="https://twitter.com/La_Veriteee/status/928022281095278592?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 7, 2017</a></blockquote>” id=”928022281095278592″ type=”twitter”}}

After Williams left his class in the Engineering Building, he saw people gathering outside the College of Business Administration Building.

“I came out of class through the back door, and as soon as I came outside, everyone was looking and talking and saying ‘It’s a raccoon,’” Williams said. “So, I go up a little bit more so I can see him, and I look, and the raccoon was creeping around the table, so I just pulled out my phone instantly and just started recording from there.”

The video footage shows the thief climbing up to the table, apparently attracted to the victim’s sandwich.

“Raccoons are very opportunistic so they go to where the food is,” Scott Courdin, GS wildlife curator, said.

Raccoons are omnivores, according to livescience.com, so they eat both vegetation and meat. It seems the sandwich swiper was craving both between two slices of bread.

The bandit made a quick grab at the sandwich. For a moment, there seemed to be a tug of war between the beast and the man, the sandwich pulled to either opponent in a brief battle.

Finally, the Statesboro Sandwich Swiper won. He quickly fled the scene with half the sandwich in his mouth.

In broad daylight

According to livesicence.com, raccoons are known to be nocturnal animals. However, Courdin said there are two reasons the critter was out in broad daylight.

“One, not likely this time of year, they will be more brazen when they have young that they have to feed,” he said. “Also, if they are sick or injured, they will continue to forage through the day so they can sustain themselves.”

Courdin said he cannot tell from the video the reason for the creature being awake past his bedtime. He emphasized that raccoons may carry rabies and should be handled with caution.

In 2015, there were 1,611 reported rabies cases involving raccoons in the United States, representing 29.4 percent of all wildlife rabies cases in the country, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

“I’ve dealt with a lot of animals myself,” Courdin said. “I would’ve gotten out of there a lot sooner than that student did… They can bite, and even without rabies, they can do a lot of damage if they were to attack somebody.”

Save the sandwich

If the “Statesboro Sandwich Snatcher” or any of his furry accomplices try to steal your food, Courdin encourages students to report the case to the University Police.

Courdin also suggests that if an animal starts to approach, take your food and move away before they ever get a chance to grab it.

“I know they’re cute and they’re very cool animals. They are very interesting. They’re intelligent, but they can be dangerous,” Courdin said.

The George-Anne was unable to identify the victim of this case of sandwich swiping. If this was you, we would enjoy hearing your side of the story. Feel free to contact us at gaeditor@georgiasouthern.edu.

Blakeley Bartee contributed to this report.