LAST YEAR, police in Delaware County dealt with a runaway cow, a drug-dealer's alligator and a Vietnamese micro potbellied pig named "Steve" that made national headlines.
Yesterday, it was ball python snakes. Twenty of them.
Cops in Ridley Township were searching last night for a gunman who they believe shot a Doylestown man in the Woodlyn Shopping Center during a $12,600 snake deal gone wrong.
Police say the victim, who was in stable condition at Crozer-Chester Medical Center, had planned to meet a man from New York City who had agreed to purchase the pythons in the parking lot. But the deal apparently went bad.
"It ends up the guy that was supposed to buy the snakes shoots him," said Ridley Police Detective Lt. Scott Willoughby.
The alleged shooter then stole the Doylestown man's Toyota RAV4 and drove off with the 20 snakes, but crashed into a pole, and ran off.
He threw a Smith & Wesson .357 revolver and a Beretta 9 mm into the woods, police say.
Willoughby said last night that a slight possibility remains that the gunman was not the snake buyer, and that he might have randomly carjacked the Doylestown man before the buyer arrived from New York.
"You'd think the snake guy would rob the other guy for the cash, not the other way around," Willoughby said.
Police described the shooter as a black man, wearing black clothes, likely in his early 20s.
Tipsters should call 610-532-4000.
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