East Manatee, Florida

From the Sarasota Herald Tribune of May 16, 2006

People 'going crazy' over attacks

Manatee woman shoots gator as fatal assaults leave state shook up

An unprecedented surge in fatal alligator attacks has created a stir among Floridians, including a local woman who used a handgun to fend off a gator.

When a 3-foot alligator came onto Candy Frey's lanai Saturday and attacked her golden retriever, the East Manatee woman grabbed her pistol.

Frey and her daughter managed to push the alligator through a dog-door on their lanai, then Frey shot the reptile four times.

"I was running on so much adrenaline," recalled Frey, 48, a former U.S. Marine aviation technician who has lived in the Panther Ridge subdivision for four years. "I just freaked out and shot him -- boom, boom, boom, boom."

Frey said she was thinking about recent gator attacks when she got her gun.

"People are shook up," said Todd Hardwick, a trapper who captured a 9-foot, 4-inch alligator Monday in a residential lake north of Miami. "It's like the citizens of Florida have declared war on alligators. People are really going crazy."

(More about gator attacks)