Somewhere, the late Steve Irwin (aka the Crocodile Hunter), is smiling after seeing the heroic works of a Texas police officer.
Cameras captured the moment that a Houston-area police officer snatched up an alligator with his bare hands in front of a local resident’s home Friday, according to local affiliate KHOU11.
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.
Body cam footage shows Henry cautiously approach the gator with outstretched arms as the gator 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.
Check it out:
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 grabbed the gator by the throat with his left hand while using his right to contain the gator’s violently thrashing body. A moment later he has both his hands around the gator’s neck and is seen escorting it off the property.
But if you could believe it, Henry told KHOU11 that this particular 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 also told KHOU11 that there were so many gators in Fulshear that police recruits received training on how to catch them.
Both gators captured were safely returned to large bodies of water, the Houston outlet reported