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VIDEO: Sarasota PD traps 4ft boa constrictor

Posted at 6:27 PM, Mar 17, 2016
and last updated 2016-03-18 00:28:30-04

A brand new Florida resident didn't quite get the nice Florida welcome Thursday morning.

"Everything was good until this morning," said Sonya Clifton, who just moved to Sarasota, Florida from Ohio one week ago.

When she woke up and stepped out on her back porch, she discovered a four foot long boa constrictor slithering along her lanai.

"That is probably the one thing I am most terrified of in my life is a snake," she said.

Clifton called a friend who then called Sarasota's finest and bravest officers.

"I don't mind them," said Officer Todd Tschetter. "I mean, it's not one of my favorite things…"

Tschetter grabbed a pole from his SUV and another officer drew the short straw of holding open the pillow case.

A neighbor used his cell phone to record the officer's trapping the snake.

"There were other people there including the lady who called us who was deathly afraid of snakes. You could hear her in the back of the video kind of oo-ing and aww-ing," Officer Tschetter said.

Clifton wanted the snake gone so badly, she asked if the officers if they would draw their weapons incase the creature got away.

"If they couldn't get it with a stick then I wanted them to shoot it!" She said.

Luckily, the officers who arrived did not have to resort to lethal force.

The four foot boa has since been turned over to animal services where it will remain for five days incase its owner -- if it has one -- claims it.

Obviously Clifton had something else in mind entirely.

"I wouldn't have cared if they threw some dynamite at it just to get rid of it!" She said.