‘Strangest call of the weekend’ ends with Santa Ana police officer taking home a python
Maria Chan woke to a slithering surprise in her home early Saturday.
The Santa Ana resident discovered shortly after 1 a.m. that a 3- to 4-foot-long ball python had set up residence in her storage room.
She screamed for her husband, Francisco Chan, to get out of bed.
“Oh my God, a snake is in here!” he recalled her yelling.
He said Tuesday that he wasn’t initially convinced a reptile was in the house. He put on his glasses to get a closer look and saw the snake next to some boxes.
“I didn’t know if it was poisonous,” Francisco said. “It was a big snake.”
Animal control wasn’t available, authorities said, so Santa Ana Police Officer Justin Collins responded to the couple’s home in the 900 block of South Main Street. When he pulled up, Maria frantically rushed him inside, Collins told CBS-TV Channel 2.
“I saw it on our board and I knew most of my partners wouldn’t want to go out to it,” he told the station.
Collins, who has owned snakes since he was 5 years old, is familiar with the non-poisonous species, so he calmly picked it up.
Collins said he called a few animal shelters, but none of them could take the snake, so he took the reptile home until its owner comes forward or space at a shelter becomes available.
Police posted about the incident on social media on Monday, calling it the department’s “strangest call of the weekend.”
It is not clear how the reptile got into the house.
Francisco said Collins reassured him that ball pythons are not dangerous.
“He said the snake is a good snake,” Francisco said. “I said ‘Maybe it’s good, but can you take it?’”
Twitter: @Hannahnfry
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