This Boynton Beach police officer isn’t afraid to tangle with a live gator. He’s now being labeled a hero after wrestling a big-ass reptile into submission. If the officer didn’t get that gator under control, there was a good chance it’d be euthanized by wild life officials. The officer was even able to relocate the defeated gator to a nearby canal.
Good thing this officer isn’t a wimp when it comes to gators. If the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission arrived on the scene, that gator may have met its maker. A hostile gator disturbing a residential area might be used as grounds for execution, if there’s no other option available.
The officer subdued the alligator with his lasso and then tossed his jacket over the reptile’s head. The policeman was able to pick up the disorientated gator and carried the creature to his vehicle. The officer later released the gator to the waters of a nearby canal.
Officer Alfredo Vargas is revealed to be the policeman who wrangled the gator. He was congratulated by the Boynton Beach Police Department’s Facebook page:
“The Gator Boys Alligator Rescue will be proud of this one…A few weeks ago, Officer Alfredo Vargas responded to a call from a resident of Hunter’s Run who found an alligator laying by his front door. Watch Officer Vargas’ body camera video to see how he was able to safely secure the alligator. He learned how to handle/wrestle alligators at the Native Village in Hollywood, Florida. There, he was mentored by Michael “Skeet” Johns and Jimmy Riffle, who remains one of his best friends.
Officer Vargas called the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and learned that it would be about 30 minutes before a trapper could arrive, and it was likely that the trapper would kill the alligator. Officer Vargas said he didn’t want that to happen given his background with learning how to capture nuisance gators and return them to their natural habitat, which is what the Gator Boys Alligator Rescue does. FWC advised that he could release the reptile elsewhere, so he put the alligator in the back seat of his patrol car and took him out to a canal by Congress Avenue and Miner Road. Officer Vargas removed the tape from around its mouth and put him back in the water. Officer Vargas doesn’t know it yet, but we’ve just made him the department’s official alligator wrestler (kidding but not really).”
The video has went viral. And Officer Alfred Vargas will now be known as that bad-ass, gator-wrestling cop.
Now, that gator can swim off to a life of fish and freedom.
