INDEPENDENCE, Mo. (CN) - Three police officers shot first and asked questions later when they saw an alligator in a suburban Kansas City pond. But after the second shot bounced off the deadly beast, the cops realized they had shot a concrete lawn ornament.
Independence Police spokesman Tom Gentry told The Associated Press that an alligator had been spotted in the woods. Police officers spotted the crafty gator in the weeds near a tree by a pond, and acting on instruction from a conservation officer, shot it twice in the head before realizing the hunt would be fruitless.
Gentry said the landowner told police he had bought the fake alligator to keep children off his property.
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