Photos Courtesy Winnfield Police Department

When a law enforcement posse assembled on February 27 to remove a trespassing gator from the Winnfield Senior High School campus, it wasn’t a Lakeview High School Gator.  It was a real, four-legged armored reptile alligator that was none too pleased to be bothered.

Winnfield City Police received a call from a motorist who’d spotted the critter on the school grounds near Hwy 167 across from Misty Lane.  By the time police arrived minutes later, the intruder had already traveled a good distance to the gravel parking lot near the stadium.

Participants in the roundup included city officers David Loftin, Andrea Allen, Timothy Schmidtendorph, chief Johnny Ray Carpenter, Jesse Phillips, marshal Jamie Maxwell and a state trooper Bradley Smith.  The Department of Wildlife & Fisheries was advised but the situation was resolved by the local officers.

Through it took several attempts to rope the uncooperative alligator, the Trooper Smith was able to lasso the “small” (perhaps 5 to 6 feet) intruder and tighten the rope.  Then he and Loftin pulled the alligator over Hwy 501 into the swampy lot across from the parking lot.

“They figured that was where he came from in the first place,” as patrol officer Allen.  “He was probably a baby and his mother might have been over there waiting on him.”  All was accomplished without disruption at the school.  “No one from the school noticed.”

Detective Loftin observed that this was not the first alligator to come up out of that low-lying tract.