OK, time to own up to my own less-than-heroic moment

Since my professional and blogging peers are outting themselves about their encounters with bad and scary things, specifically Officer Smith and Roaknoke Cop, (and you must read each of their tales for perspective and laughs) I shall now relate one of my not-exactly best moments in law enforcement.

It was a dark and stormy night...

OK, it was dark, but the weather was otherwise nice. I got a call to check a burglar alarm out at a cemetery's maintenance building.
Now aside from the fact that it was a cool October night, with that eerie ground fog all over the place, it was in the middle of a bad part of the city. I could think of better places to have been rather than responding to that call.

But I had no say, so I went. I cautiously rolled up on the building and doused my lights. By this time, I'd learned to douse the lights after coming to a complete stop, courtesy of a pole that I didn't see the last time that I doused them while still rolling.

I got out and walked around the building, and I didn't see any signs of forced entry. So far, so good. There was a key made available for us to use to check the interior, so I unlocked the door and shone my light inside, wishing like hell that we had a K-9 available. I called out and identified myself and gave the appropriate verbal orders for anyone inside to show themselves. Nothing. Maybe for once this one was a false alarm. I reached inside the doorway to turn on the light...and went "YAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

A few seconds later, as I lay on my back on the driveway after jumping back and tripping over one of a number of loose bricks on the ground, I realized that the thing that had grabbed my hand when I reached in to turn on the light was not the Grim Reaper or even a typical burglar, but merely the cemetery cat, which was apparently relaxing on top of the large light switch panel box, at least until I'd reached in and put my hand down on it. The cat, not caring for this, responded in typical cat fashion: a ear-piercing yowl, a slash at my hand with a paw full of claws, and a bite. But all that I knew in that first second was that something had screamed and grabbed me.

As I put two and two together, I began to catch my breath. Then I got up off the ground and picked up my flashlight, which had landed in the leaves a short distance away.
Then I used the flashlight to find my pistol, which had gone flying off in the other direction.
Then I roundly cursed that cat as I made sure the building was secure and cleared that call, grateful for the fact that no one had seen that.

I found out later that several other officers had had similar encounters with that cat in the dark. Apparently it likes to leap off of shelves and down from the rafters onto people as well.

Ah, memories.