Alligators guard drug den

2008-02-27 14:05

Chicago - Officers trying to track down a drug dealer in Ohio stumbled across two alligators guarding his back door instead.

The snipping and snapping gators were far from full-sized - one was about two feet long and the other was about four feet long - but were scary enough to make a team of tough federal marshals and Dayton, Ohio police officers call for help.

"Nobody wanted to play catch a gator," said William Taylor, supervisory deputy US Marshal.

"We haven't got any Crocodile Dundees on the task force," he joked, adding that the marshals are having fun putting on fake Australian accents as he made reference to the adventurous croc hunter from the Hollywood movie.

Luckily for them, a suburban police officer moonlights as an exotic animal wrangler.

"I get called out on these all the time," said Tim Harrison, who runs Outreach for Animals.

"Not six months ago they had a 12 foot Burmese python loose in (a drug dealer's) house."

When he first started collecting exotic animals in the Dayton area about 34 years ago, Harrison would probably get about six calls a year.

Now he gets 175 a year - everything from an elephant in a living room to panthers and lions roaming through the suburbs - including about a dozen alligators a year.

And he's begun giving seminars to law enforcement officers warning them of the booby traps that await them in drug dens like venomous snakes in bags of dope.

Taylor says his officers are prepared for finding pit bulls or other aggressive dogs when they bust drug dealers but the gators were a shock.

"A lot of these guys think it's cool to keep a tough pet," he said. "Not a lot of drug dealers of the thug variety are going to keep a poodle."

The gators are being cared for at a local animal shelter until a suitable home can be found for them.

Taylor's team also seized guns, drugs and two pit bull puppies in the Monday morning raid but are still on the lookout for the drug dealer who is wanted for violating his parole.

- AFP