Excerpt from the Chapter- “Alligator on the Loose”
We decided to walk over to the bushes and see what we could see. That would determine what we would do next. Greg went and got his shotgun out of his police car. That looked like a good idea, just in case. I got my patrol rifle out of my patrol car and chambered a round. I set the selector on “safe.” Sergeant Randy had his camera out. The three of us started across the fifty feet of open space to the hedgerow. We were still about twenty feet from the hedgerow and I saw the bushes moving. A six foot long alligator came strolling out, right towards us. We made a hasty retreat back to the parking lot and the gator turned left and walked towards the front of the clubhouse. He was easily big as me. I am six foot two and weighed about two hundred and forty pounds at the time. This alligator probably weighed around two hundred and fifty pounds.
An Animal Control Officer pulled into the parking lot. Nicole got out of her truck and grabbed her pole with the noose on it. She was kind of on the small side. I wondered if she had any experience in catching ‘gators. I am guessing that was not covered in her training. The two zone officers I had there with me were Angela and Wendy. To their credit, they were ready to do whatever I told them. The ‘gator stopped in front of the building and glared at us. He did not look particularly aggressive, but how do you know if an alligator is agitated? I did not want to shoot it except as a last resort. We were surrounded by houses and I did not want to risk a ricochet. But, how do you capture an alligator?
