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updated 4:52 p.m. ET April 30, 2007

SAN ANTONIO - All it takes is one illegally parked troublemaker to tie up freeway traffic — especially if it's an 8-foot alligator sprawled across the pavement.

"I don't remember any of this in the academy," police Officer Albert Silva said of the traffic jam early Sunday. "As far as I know, there's no procedure on this other than: 'Don't get bit.'"

Police car sirens didn't persuade the big reptile to budge off Loop 410.

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Police threw orange traffic cones at the gator, but it just snapped at the cones and flung them away.

The gator even assaulted a police car, biting a chunk out of its bumper.

Officers finally used a lasso and metal poles to coax the alligator into a drainage ditch leading to a lake.

State game warden David Chavez couldn't explain why a gator would take up residence on a busy highway.

"They keep to themselves," he said. "They don't go out looking for trouble."