Cameras captured the moment that a Texas police officer snatched up an alligator with his bare hands in front of a local resident’s home Friday, KHOU11 reported.
Although the gator that Fulshear Police Department Lt. Bill Henry was able to corral was relatively small, video posted on KHOU11 shows it baring its teeth, hissing and snapping its jaws as the officer moves in.
Video shows Henry cautiously approach the gator with outstretched arms as the reptile backs into a corner by the home’s front door. The gator then tries to bite the officer, snapping its jaws and just missing his left arm. (RELATED: Wild Video Shows MMA Fighter Take Down Alligator On Busy Street)
Check it out! A Fulshear officer’s bodycam shows you what it looks like to wrangle a gator with your bare hands! The gator was safely relocated.
Full story: https://t.co/ZGHlkeSSiu pic.twitter.com/q6HBTn9URC
— KHOU 11 News Houston (@KHOU) August 24, 2024
Henry quickly grabs the gator by the throat with his left hand while using his right to contain the gator’s violently writhing body. A moment later he has both his hands around the gator’s neck and is seen escorting it off the property.
Henry told KHOU11 that this gator call was his second of the day.
“So this morning at 7 a.m., we went out to a house in the backyard up next to their wood fence, the alligator was laying there. We used a pole on that one because he was kind of hidden in the vegetation.” he said. “Three hours later, we have another call. This one sitting right in the front … He’s sitting right there at the front door. So that one, he was relatively small. I felt pretty comfortable, so I walked up there and just grabbed him.”
Henry told KHOU11 that there were so many gators in Fulshear that police recruits received training on how to catch them.
Both gators captured in Fulshear Friday were safely returned to large bodies of water, the outlet reported.