It may have been an unmarked car but apparently the rat knew where he was: a city police sergeant with Baltimore Police Department when he felt something on the back of his neck in the patrol vehicle. The cop got a couple bites before officers later returned to beat the limping animal to death with an umbrella.
The cop swiped at his neck on the way to a robbery call where he was riding as a passenger -- to find a large rat crawling up his back. As to how the rat got into the cruiser is still under debate but it's thought to have crawled up from the car's underbelly to gnaw on wires, before ending up in the seat.
Apparently the rat wasn't too fond of the swipe -- biting the cop's palm and thumb before the Baltimore officer was able to throw it out of the car window onto a lane of the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial Bridge.
The cop's partner took the officer to Harbor Hospital. But it didn't end there: Law enforcement was told it needed to retrieve the rat in order to test the rodent for rabies or disease.
Bringing the suspect in "dead or alive" was apparently the mission:
The pair of cops returned to where they'd throw the rat out of the patrol car -- to find it reportedly limping along the road on Hanover Street. It seems struggles aren't limited to cops and citizens: After a reported, brief struggle with the already ailing rat, one of the officers reportedly decided to beat the rat to death with an umbrella then bag it. Apparently the officer's baton must've been missing.
15 years ago, in 1996, another Baltimore Police officer was attacked by an animal: a 3-foot-long Ornate Nile Monitor Lizard found near Patterson Park. Something says the cop didn't beat that animal to death.
The bitten officer -- thought to be Sergeant Marc J. Camarote, a 15-year veteran -- is on leave while waiting to find out whether the rat is diseased. Camarote's media debut was in 2004, when retired police reporter Richard Irwin gave the cop a newspaper mention in the old police blotter for a drug arrest.
Now he can be known for heroic efforts in beating an animal to death.