PSX5Central
Non Gaming Discussions => Off-Topic => Topic started by: luckee on February 25, 2003, 11:47:57 AM
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Gator-toting driver panics over \'felony in the back seat\'
Associated Press
Posted February 25 2003, 10:38 AM EST
PORT CHARLOTTE -- Leslie Strickland said she had nothing but good intentions when she loaded a badly hurt 6-foot alligator into the back seat of her Honda Accord and took it home last weekend in Port Charlotte.
The 49-year-old woman had hit the animal with her car Friday night and went back hoping to rescue it. Instead, she crashed her car when the gator started to thrash, got arrested and spent the night in jail.
Strickland, who lives in Port Charlotte north of Fort Myers, was charged with possession of an alligator, a felony in Florida.
Police also charged her with driving with a suspended license and walking away from the scene of the accident -- leaving the injured alligator in the back seat of her Honda.
"I knew I was in trouble, and I panicked and I left," Strickland said Monday. "I had a felony in the back seat."
Strickland said she didn\'t have much trouble grabbing the alligator around the middle and lifting it into her car Saturday afternoon. She figured it was in shock and dying.
"He was very lethargic, and I was not afraid of him," she said. "I was careful to stay away from his jaws."
Strickland said she drove the gator home, wetted it down with a hose and then tried unsuccessfully to reach somebody with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
After neighbors told her it was illegal to have the animal, she loaded it in the car again and drove off in search of a pond so she could release it.
That\'s when the alligator started to thrash its tail, she said. Distracted, she veered off the road and hit a mailbox. Witnesses told police she tried to drive off, but her car got stuck in the ditch. So she walked away.
Police arrested Strickland at her home nearby, adding a charge of resisting arrest after she struggled with officers who tried to handcuff her. She said she "freaked out" at the prospect of going to jail.
The game commission removed the alligator from the car and hauled it away. It later died.
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Poor alligator.
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well I hope they atleast make a nice pair of shoes out of the little feller.
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What the hell was she thinking.
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Wow, people really are stupid as hell.
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Leslie Strickland said she had nothing but good intentions when she loaded a badly hurt 6-foot alligator into the back seat of her Honda Accord and took it home last weekend in Port Charlotte.
Maybe she wanted a Leather interor but was a bit Short of the Old $$$$
;)
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you dont get much dumber than that
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OH MY FREAKING LORD!!!!!! I wish it would have said at the end of that.
she ended up being a good samartain after all the gator wouldnt have survived it wounds if it wasnt able to feed off of the woman for a weeks time and get the energy to return to the wild
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Any word about the car? Did it make it out of the ditch?