Gator Hater

By Lee Vander Boegh –

Here’s a quick pop quiz: If you come across an 8-foot alligator, you should: A) Scream like you’re passing a kidney stone, B) Run away, as fast as you can, as if you just saw an 8-foot alligator, C) Drop to the fetal position and hope you taste bad, or D) Wrestle with it.

The correct answer is: live in places where alligators don’t. But since that wasn’t an option, I’ll accept any combination of A, B and C. Because under no circumstances should you ever try to trade blows.

But that’s what a policeman in Florida did last month. When he got a call that an alligator was meandering in an apartment parking lot, he did what any member of the Detroit Pistons would do: he tried to fight it. (You can read all about it here: http://www.local6.com/news/16650883/detail.html).

According to a television news station in Volusia County, “Witnesses said the deputy threw a towel on the alligator, jumped on its back and tried to wrestle it. Baughman was thrown off the back and then bitten, witnesses said.”
The whole incident ended with the deputy in the hospital, him and two others on suspension and a dead alligator. Crazy as it may sound, the policeman couldn’t quite control the umpteen million pound prehistoric eating machine, which threw him off and bit his leg. Apparently it was quite the wound, since bystanders Carlos Martinez said, “His pants ripped up and blood was gushing out and everything.”

To add insult to injury, “He started limping away and the alligator was laughing at him,” Martinez added.

So the policeman did what any self respecting member of a hip hop posse would do. He shot it. Twice. In the head. And while he did that, another policeman shot the alligator with every bullet in his gun. Neither firearm had much of an effect though, since the beast went on its business undeterred.

The gator was eventually killed by a wildlife officer, who presumably got laughed at.