400-pound monster alligator named Pepe detained for being a dinosaur without proper papers in NC

The scales of justice came for Pepe.Cops detained – and rescued – a monster 10-foot alligator they nicknamed Pepe the Gator sunbathing on a busy road in North Carolina and “charged” him on suspicion of being a “dinosaur.”“Witnesses say he was just chilling and snapping, clearly ignoring the ‘no loitering or lounging on roadways’ sign,” the Onslow County Sheriff’s Office wrote in a playful press release last week.

“Pepe has been cited for Suspicion of Being a Dinosaur Without Proper Papers, Public Loitering with Intent to Sunbathe, and Obstructing Traffic.”The responding deputies and officers from the NC Wildlife Resources Commission who got the call on May 25 managed to safely remove Pepe, but not before posing for pictures where they straddle him like rodeo riders. “He was 10 feet long, 400 pounds.He was an absolute monster,” Trevor Dunnell, spokesman for the Onslow County Sheriff’s Office told the Post Thursday.“They did a fantastic job of wrangling him.”To indicate the scale of the gator, Dunnell pointed out how, in the picture, even with three grown men on top of him, Pepe’s still not covered.“The picture really doesn’t do it justice, I mean 10 feet … 10 feet is a basketball goal, that is a massive creature,” he said. Although 10 feet seems big, it’s nothing compared to the largest gator on record – 14 feet and 3 and a half inches. Deputies and wildlife officials used a towel to cover Pepe’s eyes — eye contact is what triggers the animal’s notorious death roll, Dunnell explained — and electrical tape to seal his mouth shut.“It was definitely some MacGyver stuff they had to use,” he said.

“He may not have a good time during the removal, but he was playfully enough about it later to understand that, ‘Hey, man, you gotta do what you gotta do.’”Dunnell said the office received blowback from people online wishing the cops had just left Pepe alone.but Dunnell was quick to point out that leavi...