Deputies rope, handcuff 7-foot alligator near elementary school

Pinellas County Sheriff's Office deputies captured a seven and a half foot alligator as it walked toward a school crossing at Forest Lakes Elementary School in Oldsmar Monday morning.

The sheriff's office said just before 7 a.m. a school crossing guard, Denise Leone, spotted an alligator lying against a wall. The wall separates the Preserves at Cypress Lakes subdivision from the sidewalk of Forest Lakes Boulevard on the east side of Forest Lakes Elementary School.

Leone called deputies, and when they arrived the alligator was still lying in the same position. They called for a trapper and monitored the gator until the trapper could arrive.

"Unfortunately, the gator did not want to wait and started walking southbound along the sidewalk of Forest Lakes Boulevard toward the intersection of Pine Avenue where children were in the process of crossing the street to school," the sheriff's office said.

Because the trapper was still an hour away, deputies Jeffrey Crandall, Michael Bard, and Richard Serra Jr. worked together to get a rope around the gators neck and tail.

The gator violently rolled several times, thrashing and hitting the wall, breaking off chunks of stucco. Once the gator stopped rolling the deputies secured its mouth with electrical tape and its hind legs with handcuffs.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission took custody of the alligator.