[This thread is for crimes involving snakes. What is the crime committed here?]

Pranksters toss python at drive-through worker
Taco Bell worker has fear of snakes, Round Rock police say.


By By Isadora Vail
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, September 20, 2007

ROUND ROCK � Three men in a pickup truck tossed a python through a drive-through window at a Taco Bell worker who is afraid of snakes, police said. Round Rock police say the incident may have been a prank aimed at 20-year-old Bryant Simmons.

Simmons told police that at around 9 p.m. Sunday a truck pulled up to the window at the restaurant at 1108 N. Interstate 35 and that the snake was thrown at him. The snake hit his chest, but did not bite, said police spokesman Eric Poteet.

When police arrived, they found the 3-foot python and gave it to a woman who works at a nearby Thundercloud Subs restaurant who was known to love snakes, Poteet said.

"It's usually up to the officer what to do with the animal when it comes to situations like these," said Poteet.

He said animal control officers were not on duty at the time and that the snake was worth at least $200. Police do not think the snake was a threat to people, Poteet said.

"That's a pretty nice pet. I don't know why someone would just throw it out like that," Poteet said.

Police were able to get a description of the vehicle from a surveillance tape: It is a white Dodge Ram pickup truck with a logo in the back windshield that says "Ram Sport," and the words "For Sale" written on the passenger's side window in shoe polish.

Three men were in the truck, said police.

Police are still investigating the incident and the men could be charged with a class C misdemeanor of assault.

P.C.Sec. 42.09(3)Cruelty to animals?

Still an assault by threat, since they apparently knew that the employee was "afraid of snakes." The employee undoubtedly has an above-average fear of being injured by snakes. Therefore, they tossed a snake at him to cause him to fear just such an injury. Thus, they threatened him with bodily injury. Q.E.D. Even if the snake was harmless, this would be analogous to pointing a toy gun at a person. If you intend him to think he is in real danger, then the crime is committed.

Of course, it's probably just a Class C that way, but really...what sort of crime should this be, after all.

Do snakes need special protection? Could Shannon draft a new subsection, something that provides protection for Reptiles?

Careful! He might include some bipeds in that definition.

This thread is sorta like that "News of the Weird" catagory entitled "No longer Weird".

Sorta random that there will be enough snake incidents to devote a whole thread to it. Yet in my career, I have seen several snake cases of varying types.

Crooks like them snakes. I've seen several cases where dealers had snakes as pets and a fellow prosecutor years ago had a snake owner who threatened other diners at ihop with a snake. Any guesses as to why they luv them snakes so much?

I even have a photo of a well known prosecutor with his pet python or whatever kind of large repile he owns. Sorry, can't divulge his name. He would accuse me of picking on him.

Man Bitten After Putting Snake in Mouth to Impress Girlfriend

Snake collector Matt Wilkinson of Portland grabbed a 20-inch rattler from the highway near Maupin, and three weeks later, to impress his ex-girlfriend, he stuck the serpent in his mouth.

He was soon near death with a swollen tongue that blocked his throat. Trauma doctors at the Oregon Health and Science University saved his life.

"You can assume alcohol was involved," he said. Actually, not just beer. It was something he called a "mixture of stupid stuff."

Some of you may remember the snake handling preacher who tried to kill his wife with rattlesnakes from the news reports. Since I grew up in Jackson County, Alabama, I used to get a lot of questions about it.


Preacher convicted of forcing snakes on wife asks for new trial

The Associated Press

SCOTTSBORO, Ala. -- A former preacher, convicted six years ago of making his wife put her hand into a box filled with venomous snakes, is asking for a new trial.

Glenn Summerford, 55, said in his request that his attorney was ineffective and that the absence of blacks, women and young adults on the jury interfered with his right to a fair trial.

Similar requests by Summerford were turned down by the court in 1992 and 1994.

Summerford -- then the pastor of the Northeast Alabama Church of Jesus Christ with Signs Following -- was convicted in 1992 of attempted murder.

According to court testimony, Summerford accused his wife Darlene Summerford of seeing another man, then forced her at gunpoint to put her hand into the snake box on two occasions. She was bitten both times.

Summerford refused to get his wife medical treatment, but the woman called her sister after he fell asleep and got help.

The high-profile trial spotlighted the Appalachian tradition of snake-handling in worship services.



Former Snakehandling Preacher Escapes Prison Briefly

The Associated Press/February 25, 2003

Childersburg, Ala. -- A former snakehandling preacher, serving a 99-year sentence for trying to kill his wife with a rattlesnake, escaped briefly from a work detail.

Prison officials said Glenn Summerford, who has served about 11 years of his sentence, slipped away from the work detail for about 45 minutes Friday before being returned to custody. He then was moved from the work center at Childersburg to the state prison in St. Clair County.

Summerford, 58, was convicted of attempted murder in 1992 after his wife, Darlene, testified that he grabbed her by the hair and forced her to put her hand in a cage of rattlesnakes after hitting it with a pipe to make the snakes mad. She was bitten twice but survived.

Summerford at the time handled snakes as pastor of the Church of Jesus With Signs Following near Scottsboro.

HB 12, effective June 15, added Chapter V to Chapter 43, Parks & Wildlife Code, making it a Class C Misdemeanor to possess or transport python and anaconda snakes without a state-issued permit. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

I had an English friend who grew up in SA. He would relate an awful practice of how people would throw poisonous snakes into crowded truck beds traveling along the roads. You can imagine the panic and injuries.

JAS

You will be pleased to learn that the python in the Taco Bell case now has a new home with a young woman who already has two. The snake, a Ball Python, made an appearance on last night's news broadcast.

Janette A

COMMENTARY: John Kelso
If you think the snake needs to see a shrink, you're a Democrat

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, September 23, 2007

Is it genetically possible to be a Dallas Democrat?

Isn't that like claiming to be an Oklahoma intellectual?

Still, up in Dallas, where calling someone snooty is a compliment, some politicians are jumping ship from the Republican to Democratic Party, thinking, I guess, that the Republican ship is going blub blub blub. Leading the charge from right to left � literally � are state Rep. Kirk England and Dallas County Criminal Court Judge John Creuzot. Creuzot is doing the political hokeypokey. A few years back, he changed from Democrat to Republican. Now he's switching back to Democrat.

So he pulled his left foot in, stuck his right foot out, then he pulled his right foot back in and stuck his left foot out. No word on whether he shook it all about. If he shook it all about, he's not a Republican.

Swell, but are these guys really qualified to call themselves Democrats? Or are they still Republicans posing as Democrats so they can keep their jobs? And how do you tell whether you're really a Democrat or a Republican?

If I were in charge, I wouldn't let any elected official in Texas change parties until he explained his position on the following:

If you think the punks who threw the python at the kid working at the Taco Bell drive-through up in Round Rock should do time for assault, you're a Republican. If you think the punks should go to jail for psychological damage done to the snake, you're a Democrat. If you think the snake should go in for counseling, you're really a Democrat.

If you turn down the air conditioner because it's too cold, you're a Republican. If you turn down the air conditioner because Al Gore said so, you're a Democrat.

If you like all the lofts shooting up all over downtown Austin because you think it'll conserve land for bird habitat, you're a Democrat. If you like all the expensive lofts going up in downtown Austin because it will relocate all the riffraff from valuable urban real estate to the trailer parks in Hays County, you're a Republican.

If you drive past a head shop and think, "Those dirty hippies ought to be held down and given a bath," you're a Republican. If you drive past a head shop and think, "I wonder if this store carries a wide selection of hemp products and maybe the Zig-Zag squares," you're a Democrat.

If you thought hanging Saddam Hussein might have violated his rights, you're a Democrat. If you think they should dig him up and hang him again, you're a Republican.

If you're appalled by Austin's new toll roads, you're a Democrat. If you think to yourself, "Boy, I wish I owned one of these new toll roads," you're a Republican.

Brooklyn woman finds a python in her potty

Associated Press

NEW YORK � There was no Halloween bogeyman in the closet for one Brooklyn woman � just a 7-foot-long python in her toilet.

Nadege Brunacci was washing her hands in her bathroom before dawn Monday when she glanced back and saw the slithering serpent peeking out from her toilet, most of its body hidden in the pipes.

"I turned on the light and screamed," Brunacci, 38, told the New York Daily News. "It still makes my heart race."

Brunacci slammed down the lid, put a heavy box on top of the toilet and began calling for help, which came from her landlord and firefighters. Plumbers had to tear apart the downstairs neighbor's pipes to capture the snake, she said.

It's unclear how the snake made its way into the pipes.

Brunacci, a restaurateur, says she gave the snake to a friend who keeps it as a pet and named it after her.

Brunacci says she started using her daughter's training toilet after the scare in her third-floor apartment. And when she brushes her teeth, she said, "I'm looking over my shoulder."

quote:

---

Brunacci, a restaurateur, says she gave the snake to a friend who keeps it as a pet and named it after her.

Brunacci says she started using her daughter's training toilet after the scare in her third-floor apartment. And when she brushes her teeth, she said, "I'm looking over my shoulder."

---

I just don't know where to begin with the jokes from this... There are so very, very many...

[So, are your investigator's trained on snakes? How many hours does TCLEOSE require?]

Girl freed from pet python's grip
By Robert Quigley | Friday, November 9, 2007, 08:35 AM
A pet ball python wrapped around a 17-year-old girl's arm at her Northwest Austin apartment and squeezed tightly for nearly an hour this morning, but both the girl and the snake are safe, police say.

Austin police spokesman Richard Stresing said the girl?s father called 911 at 5:55 a.m. saying the juvenile python, which Stresing said was 2-to 3-feet long and ?about as big around as an officer?s nightstick,? had bitten his daughter?s arm and had been wrapped tightly around her arm for 20 minutes.

Stresing said the girl, who is the snake?s owner, kept the reptile in an aquarium in her bedroom. The python had gotten free in the middle of the night, Stresing said, and when she tried to retrieve the snake, it struck and grabbed onto her.

Stresing said EMS was also on the scene at the 10100 block of West Parmer Lane, but it was a police officer who wasn?t afraid of snakes who first attempted to pull the snake free.

?Every time he tried to uncoil the snake, it bit harder and wrapped more tightly,? said Stressing, who once owned a constrictor himself. ?The snake was probably just scared. It?s not like it was trying to eat her.?

Austin Fire Specialist David Thrush was finally able to remove the snake from her arm by 6:20 a.m. using ammonia caplets, said Michelle DeCrane of the Austin Fire Department.

The girl refused treatment by EMS, Stresing said.

Stresing said there are Austin officers who are certified at handling snakes, and the department is looking to train more.

?We just had a call go out for a class on handling snakes,? Stresing said with a laugh. ?Now, we?re saying, ?Hey, we do need officers for handling snakes.? ?