Wanted: the shirtless reptile-hurlers of Humpty Doo.
It sounds like a crazy caper in a children’s book, but the police in Australia are serious.
Investigators in the Northern Territory on Sunday announced that they needed the public’s help in identifying four half-naked men who had broken into a school office in the town of Humpty Doo, shattering a window and heaving a few saltwater crocodiles inside.
Photo: EPA / NORTHERN TERRITORY POLIC
Presumably, investigators also want the answer to that age-old question of crime-solving: Why did you do it?
The police released closed-circuit TV footage of the break-in, which occurred about 5am on Sunday. The footage shows the interior of an unremarkable office — desk, file cabinets, computer. Then the panes of a glass door tremble and crack, and in comes a crocodile, toppling headfirst into the room. The scaly beast is followed by another, and then a third crocodile flops headfirst through the broken glass.
The reptilian advance team is followed by human counterparts. A man is seen reaching through the broken glass to open the locked door. He darts in, shirtless but with his face covered, and three more men follow. At first they appear to be searching for something, yanking open drawers and tossing aside papers and equipment.
Finally, the footage shows them grabbing a computer and making their escape, leaving the crocodiles behind to face the music. The reptiles are barely visible on the floor, shuffling around the furniture.
A school alarm alerted a caretaker, who called the police, according to the NT News, daily which covers the Northern Territory.
The episode happened at Taminmin College, a rural secondary school serving students from grades seven through 12.
The police released little else in the way of descriptions of the suspects, but it appeared likely that investigators would want to talk to anyone in the vicinity who had easy access to crocodiles.
It was far from clear what the three reptiles — 1.5m-long female saltwater crocodiles, or “salties” — were supposed to accomplish for the intruders. The most plausible guess seemed to be that they were meant to scare off anyone who might have been present in the office at 5am.
Arrests, of sorts, were made.
“Police attended, and managed to, with the aid of a ranger, get the crocodiles in custody, if you like,” Northern Territory Police senior constable David Gregory told reporters at a news conference.
“The ranger that turned up was very concerned for them — they had their mouths taped shut, obviously,” he said. “They’re in very poor shape, they haven’t seen water for a long time, they’re undernourished.”
The Northern Territory is a vast, sparsely populated area of more than 1.42 million square kilometers, known for its outback desert landscape. Humpty Doo, which had a population of about 8,700 in 2013, is about 32km southeast of Darwin, the territory’s capital.
The Australian newspaper the Age describes Humpty Doo as a way station of sorts for people who commute to Darwin or who pass through on their way to Kakadu National Park, which attracts tourists and scientists.
Some of Humpty Doo’s attractions are of the reptilian variety. Travel guides mention the town’s huge roadside Boxing Crocodile statue and Graeme Gow’s Reptile World, with its collection of hundreds of species of snake.
The last time crocodiles in Humpty Doo made headlines was a year ago, when dozens of the animals’ heads were found in a freezer.
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