The grandfather who shot and beheaded a rattlesnake at Trinity Christian School in Mesa said he used the opportunity to remind students to leave snakes alone.
It’s best, he said, for the students to call a teacher. The teachers, though, called him when the rattlesnake showed up on Tuesday.
The incident began when the snake was spotted as school was about to let out for the day. The school secretary Tina Drappo said she decided to call her father-in-law for help.
“The safety of the children was our concern,” Drappo said.
Rich Drappo, who has had kids or grandkids at the school for over 23 years, said he was at the Home Depot near the school when he got the call.
Upon arrival Rich Drappo said he saw the snake in some rosemary bushes near the school’s porch. “If it were to have gone under the porch, that would be very dangerous, he said.
Rich Drappo said a school staffer asked if he had a gun. He replied that he did and went to his pick-up truck to grab his .22-caliber pistol.
Then he said he shot the snake, cut its head off with a shovel, and when school let out he displayed the snake to the children and told them to leave snakes like this one alone and tell a teacher.
Rich Drappo said that he took the action he did because there was only ten minutes before school was due to finish.
In other less time sensitive situations involving snakes at the school, Drappo said he doesn’t kill them.
“I grab hold of them and drop them in the desert.”
Sgt. at Arms Jerry Feldner of The Arizona Herpetological Association, an organization whose mission is to conserve, study, and further understand reptiles and amphibians, said in cases like these people should call his group. “We don’t kill rattle snakes we relocate them,” Feldner said.