A former co-worker was working as a reserve patrolman in my community to keep his certification so if there was any layoffs he would have something to fall back on.
One night I was doing a ride along with him when he got a call from a hysterical older woman. With only one or two patrolmen on duty in the evenings and overnight any calls into the police station was transferred to their radios. We went to her house to try and calm her down and find out what the problem was. After a few minutes we got her calmed down enough to tell us she was scared because there was a big black snake in her fig tree. After confirming we could see the snake and told her it appeared to be a harmless Garter Snake and she didn't have to worry about it. Well she just would not have that thing alive and in her tree, she demanded Tim to kill it. Tim tried to talk her into letting it live but she would have nothing to do with his "idiotic" idea to let it live. Besides if we were so sure it was harmless we could just catch it and drive it out of town to let it go in the woods many miles down the road. Tim, like me wasn't 100% sure it was a Garter Snake so he did what had to be done, went back to the patrol car and got some shot shells for his revolver and shot the snake. Well the snake fell down a few limbs and wrapped itself around a lower limb. A second shot produced the same result. After the third shot it fell across another limb but this time appeared to be dead. I reached into the tree with a hoe and pulled out the snake. To our surprise it wasn't dead and it WASN'T a Garter snake. Tim had just shot a rubber snake. As we were leaving two little boys about 9 or 10 years old walked over from across the street to look at the snake Tim was carrying when one of them said "Where did you find my snake?" It seems like the boy had scared his sister with the snake one too many times and she had taken it away from him and throw it toward the woods not realizing it had landed in the tree.
Someone, don't ask me how I know this, told the patrol sergeant the next day about the incident. The next time Tim showed up for his next shift there was a big black rubber snake nailed to board on top of a target with bullet holes all around the snake but none in the snake with a note from the chief that some of his patrolmen either needed to take a snake identification class or get in a little more practice at the range.
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One night I was doing a ride along with him when he got a call from a hysterical older woman. With only one or two patrolmen on duty in the evenings and overnight any calls into the police station was transferred to their radios. We went to her house to try and calm her down and find out what the problem was. After a few minutes we got her calmed down enough to tell us she was scared because there was a big black snake in her fig tree. After confirming we could see the snake and told her it appeared to be a harmless Garter Snake and she didn't have to worry about it. Well she just would not have that thing alive and in her tree, she demanded Tim to kill it. Tim tried to talk her into letting it live but she would have nothing to do with his "idiotic" idea to let it live. Besides if we were so sure it was harmless we could just catch it and drive it out of town to let it go in the woods many miles down the road. Tim, like me wasn't 100% sure it was a Garter Snake so he did what had to be done, went back to the patrol car and got some shot shells for his revolver and shot the snake. Well the snake fell down a few limbs and wrapped itself around a lower limb. A second shot produced the same result. After the third shot it fell across another limb but this time appeared to be dead. I reached into the tree with a hoe and pulled out the snake. To our surprise it wasn't dead and it WASN'T a Garter snake. Tim had just shot a rubber snake. As we were leaving two little boys about 9 or 10 years old walked over from across the street to look at the snake Tim was carrying when one of them said "Where did you find my snake?" It seems like the boy had scared his sister with the snake one too many times and she had taken it away from him and throw it toward the woods not realizing it had landed in the tree.
Someone, don't ask me how I know this, told the patrol sergeant the next day about the incident. The next time Tim showed up for his next shift there was a big black rubber snake nailed to board on top of a target with bullet holes all around the snake but none in the snake with a note from the chief that some of his patrolmen either needed to take a snake identification class or get in a little more practice at the range.
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