townspeople go bezerk over ...

[zmanzzzz 1]

link

 

Mob attack on alligator in Kalispell draws anger

By MICHAEL JAMISON of the Missoulian

 

 

 

KALISPELL - Back behind the old roller rink, on a quiet little pond called Shady Lane, a mother and son were fishing when a rippled wake cut across the water's surface.

 

“They weren't sure what it was,” said Brian Sommers, an investigator with the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. “They thought it was a really big fish.”

 

 

Actually, it was a really big alligator, about five feet long.

 

And so began a vigilante gator hunt that eventually drew 50 people and lasted hours, through the heat of the day and long into the night.

 

It's been a full week since the mom and son spotted that escaped pet in a Kalispell park, yet the excitement will not die down.

 

The alligator's owner, Rod Nelson, was cited this week for letting his pet escape, despite the fact that he wasn't even home when it got away. And now investigators are following tips that someone else may have cut the gator loose, and more charges could be pending.

 

But none of the vigilantes have been cited, leaving many here wondering whether all animals are created equal under Montana's cruelty laws.

 

How was it that no one called the authorities? Sommers wonders. How was it that a gang of 50 people came to converge on the tiny pond? How was it that the animal ended up hooked, harassed, pierced with arrows and dragged from the pond, still alive but with its throat slit?

 

“It was pretty ugly,” Sommers said. “Sort of a gang mentality, I guess.”

 

He can only guess, of course, because he didn't get the call until 10 p.m., nearly seven hours after the gator was first seen. What happened in the interim, the investigator said, may never be completely known.

 

What is known, however, is that “in this case, we could have handled the problem more effectively if the sighting of the alligator had been reported immediately.”

 

But no one reported it. Instead, Flathead County Undersheriff Mike Meehan said the family reported being too busy protecting themselves to call authorities.

 

“That's puzzling,” Sommers said. “If you want to protect your family, why not get the heck out of there and call for help? I mean, how hard is it to walk away and make the call, instead of sitting there messing with it for hours? It really amazes me that somebody didn't call.”

 

At some point during the afternoon, Sommers said, a crowd began to gather at Shady Lane.

 

Several people snagged the gator with fishing hooks. Others enticed it to swallow their lures.

 

“Personally,” Meehan said, “I can't imagine having a bellyful of treble hooks.”

 

At least one man brought a bow and shot the reptile. Another waded in and wrestled Nelson's pet, while another cut its throat open.

 

“It turned into a kind of frenzy down there,” Meehan said. “It was like a mob, just out of hand. They spent their day torturing this animal.”

 

“But gators are pretty tough,” Sommers said.

 

The animal was still alive when the crowd finally dragged it from the pond at 10 p.m., he said. That's about the time someone thought to call for help, and a sheriff's deputy arrived on the scene.

 

After conferring with Sommers, the alligator was shot by authorities.

 

“It was already half-dead,” Meehan said.

 

“As you can imagine, the owner was a little emotional,” Sommers added.

 

If it had been a mean dog, a breed with a reputation for attacking people, and the crowd had responded with hooks and barbs and sharpened knives, “then we'd be looking at animal cruelty charges, I believe,” Sommers said. He can't help but think of the outrage elicited by the man who, not so long ago, was charged here with cruelty because he used kittens to train his hunting hounds.

 

“The kind of thoughtlessness here is not far from that case, I think,” Sommers said.

 

Yet local authorities have no plans to file additional charges.

 

“We are looking into it,” Meehan said. “If we can establish just exactly who did what, we may pursue charges.”

 

That no one has yet been cited has resulted in something of an uproar from those opposing animal cruelty.

 

“We must have received 100 e-mails and probably another 200 phone calls,” Meehan said, especially after news reports hit the Internet. “People around the world were outraged.”

 

But no one's expecting criminal charges any time soon, and Sommers remains dismayed that the public response was so callous.

 

If someone had called straight away, he said, “we would have captured it pretty easily.”

 

Perhaps it could have been returned to its owner, who lives near the pond but was out of town when the gator escaped. Perhaps it could have been relocated to a new home.

 

The head of the Humane Society in Billings called Sommers this week to tell him about the half-dozen pet gators he's been able to place with families out of state, in places such as Florida. His phone's still ringing.

 

And if the fuss over gator welfare hasn't slacked, neither has the FWP investigation. Turns out, Sommers now has a lead on the people who might have set the animal loose.

 

“We're making inquiries,” he said. “There could be some charges there.”

 

But still, no charges for the mob.

 

“I've had a lot of calls about the way people treated the situation,” Sommers said, “and we've talked with the sheriff's office about it. But I really don't believe anyone there will follow up with formal action.”

 

Instead, his office is making a more informal plea for “common sense.”

 

“Report the situation immediately,” advised Jim Satterfield, supervisor at Kalispell's FWP office. “And think of the consequences of your actions toward the animal before doing anything.”

[hoytdwow 202]

'excape'?

[zmanzzzz 1]

'excape'?

 

typo

[Rusty Syringes 478]

Fock, there are so many of those things down here you wouldn't believe it.

 

Every golf course is full of them, just lying around and sunning themselves.

 

They've never bothered anyone, to my knowledge, but I sure wouldn't try to retrieve a ball that's within 25 yards of one.

 

[gocolts 300]

To bad the gator didn't kill any of those fools.

 

I wish that gator would have killed everyone of those focking morons.

[32 Big Fat Texan 0]

Why don't they wait a couple of months. That thing couldn't survive a MT winter.

[Electric Mayhem 35]

Ingnorant focks. I wish the owner knew what was going on before things got out of control.

 

Imagine what would happen if he went around twon killing every stray dog he found?

[zmanzzzz 1]

its funny how stories like this go national.