When Broy and another officer reached the home Monday, they spotted the 5-foot-long, 80-pound American alligator in a wooden enclosure attached to a garage. Inside the enclosure was a hot tub sunk into the ground and filled with 4 feet of stagnant water, and in the water, littered with broken turtle shells, was the alligator.

They called the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and Royalton Police for a little help.

To get the alligator, Scott Ballard of the IDNR pulled on chest waders, stepped into the tub and grabbed the animal. Broy and two others then dragged Ballard and the alligator out to the ground and struggled to tape the alligator’s jaws shut.

“You can’t imagine that thing’s tail,” Broy said. “He was wanting me to turn him loose, so he’d pop me in the back — just laying it on me. Wham, wham, wham. My back is so sore.”

No, no, no… you grab the alligator by the tail and haul his fat bastard ass out of the tub onto a large flat surface, then you straddle his back and hold his jaws shut with both hands while your partner tapes them shut. In less than a minute. 😉

I know this from watching an ancient kid’s show called…Jungle Jim that frequently featured alligator wrasslin’, and got a refresher course this summer watching “Kevin and Drew Unleashed.”

Heh. Good times. That was a fun show, you guys, wish they’d had more episodes. I think you’d both have been able to show the hapless Illinois animal control guy a few moves.