AP reports that a Port Orange Florida Man accused of hitting woman with gator:
A man hit his girlfriend [Nancy Monico, 39] with a 3-foot alligator and threw beer bottles at her during an argument in the couple's mobile home, authorities said.
David Havenner, 41, was scheduled for a bond hearing Saturday on misdemeanor charges of battery and possession of an alligator.
Note that Mr. Havenner is not charged with assault with a deadly weapon, and Ms. Monico only says the gator “hit” her not “bit” her. No, the biting comes later in the story:
Havenner's version of the story differed. He told investigators that Monico bit his hand because she was upset that they had run out of alcohol.
The charge is simple battery, right? Sounds like battery, by both parties.
And is ‘possession of an alligator’ a specific intent crime?
Did he have to know it was an alligator, and say, not a leather thong?
‘Possession of an alligator’ is almost as good as a charge that has come up in the Bobo the Tiger shooting case: ‘transportation of a pig in a trunk’.
Apparently you can be charged with “possession of an alligator” if you shoot it!
(you break it, you buy it?)
http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030715/NEWS/307150362/1134
LAKE WALES — A Lake Wales man who shot an
alligator one evening in mid-March will not be
prosecuted, the State Attorney’s Office has decided.
Alan Goolsby, a retired Lake Wales police officer, was
charged with the unlawful possession of an alligator
after he shot the reptile, which had walked onto his
lakefront property.