7-foot gator caught at Florida school

TAMPA, Fla., June 9 (UPI) -- Faculty members at a Florida school said they were able to coax a 7-foot alligator into a bathroom and lock the door.

Marc Pellicano, a sixth-grade science teacher at Stewart Middle School in Tampa, said he spotted the gator on school grounds as teachers and students were arriving at about 7 a.m. Monday, the Tampa Tribune reported.

"I didn't really stand there and look too much," he said. "I was kind of going into action, making sure it didn't get to anybody and no one got to it."

A second teacher called police and school administrators while others evacuated classrooms near the reptile.

Staff members said they were able to lock the alligator in a boys' bathroom before police arrived and called a trapper at about 7:30 a.m. while a game warden relocated the creature to outside of the school.

A trapper from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission captured the gator using a noose shortly after 8 a.m.

School officials said the animal may have crawled under the fences separating the school from the Hillsborough River, which is located about 100 yards from the grounds.