The incident -- occurring last Friday in Fulshear, Texas -- was caught on body cam footage, showing an officer saunter up to a home to remove the gator from the property.

Watch the clip ... the officer walks up to the scaly creature pretty calmly -- saying he got a call. Instead of reaching out to animal control, he's got it handled -- since it ain't a huge gator.

It certainly isn't huge ... but those teeth look pretty dang sharp -- and, there's a pretty tense staredown between the officer and his unfriendly foe.

Ultimately, the officer's able to wrestle the gator under control ... walking off with the creature and getting a few plaudits from people on the street watching.

Fulshear Police posted about the incident on Facebook ... saying their officer handled it 'cause you can "take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy."

Worth noting ... gator wrangling in the area isn't abnormal -- with the police department saying it's sort of a rite of passage for their officers.