Police say teens harassed alligator

The four are accused of throwing rocks and bottles at the animal in a Tarpon Springs pond.

By KATHERINE GAZELLA

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 4, 2000

TARPON SPRINGS -- Cody Flanders said he just wanted to get a closer look at an alligator swimming in a pond.

But Tarpon Springs police said that Flanders and three teenage friends threw rocks and bottles at the gator and charged all four with felonies over the weekend.

Flanders, 18, said Monday that he dangled a Zima bottle tied to speaker wire over the alligator Saturday afternoon and that three of his friends threw rocks and bottles to encourage the reptile to come out of a pond. Just a little innocent fun, he said.

"Everybody was like, let's see how big he is," said Flanders, who lives in Palm Harbor.

Police, who were called the scene by an anonymous tipster, didn't take such a light-hearted view.

Officers charged the teenagers with the illegal killing, possessing or capturing of an alligator, a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

The alligator, which was in a pond behind an apartment building at 825 E Cypress St. in Tarpon Springs, did not come out of the water. It was not injured, police said.

Flanders, who works for a surveying and engineering company in Dunedin, was taken to the Pinellas County jail and later released. A 17-year-old from Tarpon Springs and two Palm Harbor boys , one 17 and the other 16, were released to their parents. The Times is withholding the teens' names because of their ages.

Police said two of the teens admitted throwing rocks and bottles, but one would not say whether he threw anything. Flanders told the Times Monday he held the Zima bottle that was attached to the wire, but he never threw anything at the alligator.

Flanders said he was shocked that throwing rocks at an alligator is a felony.

"It's asinine," he said.

But a state wildlife official said Monday that it is dangerous to throw anything at the reptiles.

"That's not a good idea," said Gary Morse, a spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. In response to such provocations, alligators can lose their fear of humans and attack, he said.

One such incident took place in Hillsborough County last year.

In April 1999, a 8-foot, 10-inch alligator nearly killed James Heinke of Wimauma in the Tampa Bypass Canal. Heinke, then 21, had been diving for fish eggs with his father and had tried to shoo the gator away from the area. Bystanders said that some swimmers in the canal had thrown rocks at the alligator.

"We discourage any interactions with wild gators," Morse said.

- Katherine Gazella can be reached at (727) 445-4205 or at gazella@sptimes.com.

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.