A pizza delivery worker stopped in her tracks Sunday after a Florida police officer warned the worker there was an alligator in front of the house she was bringing food to.
The officer had contacted the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission about the gator, but the pizza delivery worker arrived at the Bradenton home — located about an hour’s drive south of Tampa — before the trappers arrived on Sunday.
“Stop! Stop, stop – there’s an alligator underneath that car right there,” the officer can be heard saying on body cam video released by the department on Wednesday.
The officer suggested that the delivery worker go around the back of the house to drop off the food, but the 8-foot-long gator spooked her.
“Would you want to do it, officer?” the worker asked.
A neighbor, watching what was going on with the alligator, called the customer inside the home to warn her.
“Do not come out your front door,” the neighbor can be hard saying on the call. “There’s an alligator there.”
But the hungry customer seemingly didn’t get the message and came out the front door to pick up her food anyway. The resident called out in shock as the police officer directed her to get back in her house.
“Oh my heaven, there’s a big alligator under my car,” she said. “Oh, my lordy.”
Bradenton Police Department
As the officer continued calling out to the woman to get inside, she eventually asked about her food, and the officer said he’d bring it around back.
“How much was it?” the woman asked.
“I have no idea; I’m not the pizza man,” the officer replied.
After realizing the man at the door with her food was a police officer and not the delivery worker, the customer told him she’d like a picture of the alligator. The officer later used the woman’s phone to take some shots of the alligator.
“FWC trappers relocated the gator away from the neighborhood (and Italian restaurants,)” the police department wrote on Facebook.
Bradenton Police Department
