NEWPORT BEACH : Alligator in Van Gives Officer a Shock
It was a suspicious-looking vehicle all right--especially the live alligator riding in the back.
Newport Beach Police Sgt. Chuck Olmstead did not realize the gator was alive until he shined his flashlight into the back of the van, and it did sort of a “Michael Jackson shuffle” to get out of the way, police said Friday.
Olmstead had taken a peek in the van that was parked outside the Arches Restaurant and Liquor Store on Pacific Coast Highway near Old Newport Boulevard on Wednesday night because it looked a little suspicious--kind of a police officer’s intuition.
But the mystery was resolved a short time later, when up walked the van’s owner, Monte Krizan, a herpetologist from Bloomington, Minn.
Krizan proceed to introduce the officers to Albert the alligator, a 6-foot, 230-pound gentle brute of a lizard who is “very passive,” Newport Beach police spokesman Sgt. Andy Gonis said.
And underneath the platform in the van, Krizan showed them Albert’s traveling companion, an 18-foot snake.
Just vacationing, Krizan explained. And after the police officers had their pictures snapped posing with the alligator, Krizan was on his way.
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