HOUMA, La. — Police Officer Donald Aubrey is more used to catching bad guys than giant reptiles.
That didn’t stop him from springing into action when he answered a call for service in a Houma backyard.
Saturday, Bradley Lirette called Houma PD when he found a 12-foot python that had slithered out of the bayou behind his house.
The capture was caught on cellphone video.
*Story continues below the video
“The bright yellow on that snake caught my eye as I was walking past and I just ran, took a picture of it and ran and went and called the police department,” Lirette said.
The python was not only large, but aggressive, Lirette added.
“It was coiled up in a flowerpot. When I went to call the police department, I went back to count my geese, there were two three-month-old geese that were missing. I’m assuming that it ate the geese.”
Houma Police Chief Travis Theriot complimented his officer turned snake wrangler for his quick thinking and professionalism in handling this unusual situation.
“In 25 years on the police department that’s the first time I’ve seen us catch a snake that large,” Theriot said. “We’ve caught pythons before, little, small ones around hurricanes but nothing that large.”
Chief Theriot said it appears the snake may have been living in the bayou for quite some time.
He thinks the python was someone’s pet who released it when it got too large.
“When someone takes these animals, these reptiles as a pet, the answer isn’t to release them into the wild when you get tired of it,” Theriot said. “You would have the situation like what’s going on in Florida now, where they just take over.”
Lirette said while he was terrified, Officer Aubrey showed no fear.
“I helped him put it in a pillowcase. It was very heavy. It was very heavy. It was hard to maintain it. He had the head and the tail, and I held the pillowcase, helping him put it in.”
Police turned the snake over to the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and according to the police chief, the python will not be released back into the wild.
Officer Aubrey is taking a few well-deserved days off.
Chief Theriot says he looks forward to talking to Aubrey when he gets back to work about what he was thinking as he “apprehended” the large python.
Houma man finds 12-foot python in backyard
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