Watch Fla. Deputy Put Gator in Cruiser after Pulling it Out of Pool

After fishing a 4-foot-long alligator out of a pool, a St. Johns County sheriff's deputy made sure to buckle up the animal after putting it in his cruiser to take it to a nearby pond.

By Mark Price

Source Miami Herald

Aug. 5, 2025

2 min read

What to know

A St. Johns County sheriff's deputy rescued a juvenile alligator from a swimming pool in St. Augustine.
The alligator was about 4 feet long and was safely relocated to a nearby pond after the rescue.
Body camera footage shows the deputy buckling up the animal in the back of his cruiser after it was captured.

A St. Johns County, FL, sheriff's deputy puts a 4-foot-long alligator into the back of his cruiser after grabbing it out of a backyard pool in St. Augustine on July 25.

A Florida sheriff’s deputy has captured the imagination of social media after he was seen giving an alligator a ride in his patrol car — and the predator was made to wear a seat belt.

It happened around 8:30 a.m. on July 25 after Deputy Nathan Richardson fished the alligator out of a swimming pool in St. Augustine, video shows. The gator was about 4 feet long, which counts as a juvenile.

“The alligator wasn’t happy its pool time was over or about the ride in the patrol car,” the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office wrote in a Aug. 2 Facebook post. “But it was buckled in and safely relocated to a nearby pond.”

Body cam video shows Richardson scooped the alligator out of the water with a net, grabbed it by the back of the neck and began talking to it as if it were a toddler.

“You’re fine. I know you’re super mad,” he is heard saying in the video. “You know what, let me buckle you in.”

The video had been viewed nearly 600,000 times as of Aug. 4 and gotten more than 9,700 reactions. Many noted the deputy was fearless and picked the alligator up “with his bare hands.”

“Treats this guy like it was his pet dog,” Jaynee Boucher posted on Facebook.

“This is how you can tell someone was born in Florida,” Sheila Carr wrote.

Richardson is from Florida, having been raised in Jacksonville, and he has worked for four years with the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office, officials told McClatchy News.

When asked via email about putting a seat belt on the gator, Richardson said: “I put everyone in a seat belt in my back seat so I felt like I should buckle the gator up too.”

St. Augustine is about a 40-mile drive south from Jacksonville.

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