The True Story Behind ‘Cocaine Bear’

UNLAWFUL URSINE ACTIVITY –

March 10, 2021 – If there’s anything people on the internet love more than cute animals, it’s tales of Reagan-era drug-induced depravity. So on Tuesday, when Variety reported that actor Elizabeth Banks’ upcoming project would focus heavily on a bear involved in a botched drug smuggling operation, people on social media reacted in much the same way a coke-addicted ursine would if someone broke out a credit card and a rolled-up $20 at a party: with extreme interest and excitement. The story of the cocaine bear starts with the tale of Andrew Carter Thornton, the well-off son of Kentucky horse breeders who became an Air Force officer and Purple Heart recipient and later a narcotics police officer. Thornton resigned from the Lexington, Kentucky police force in 1977 to practice law.

The law-abiding life apparently did not serve him well: in 1981 he was arrested, along with 25 other men, for attempting to steal guns from a naval base in Fresno, California and for attempting to traffic 1,000 pounds of marijuana into the country. A 1980 federal indictment alleged that Thornton was part of a drug-and-weapons smuggling ring called “the Company,” which also reportedly involved other former Kentucky police officers.

Initially, Thornton was slapped with two felony charges of conspiracy to import and distribute a controlled substance, to which he pleaded not guilty. After fleeing the state, he was found heavily armed in North Carolina and brought back to California to face reduced misdemeanor drug charges. He pleaded no contest to the charges and was sentenced to six months in prison and a $500 fine; as part of the terms of his sentence, he also had his law license revoked.

But Thornton’s days of drug smuggling were far from over. On September 11th, 1985, his body was found in a driveway in Knoxville, Tennessee, wearing a parachute and carrying about 77 pounds of cocaine, which was later valued to be worth about $14 million. He was heavily armed and wearing a bulletproof vest, and was also carrying a membership card to the Miami Jockey Club. Authorities later found his plane, which had been on autopilot, about 60 miles away. They determined that he had attempted to jump from the plane, but his parachute had failed to open. He was 40 years old.