A very tall figure in Sonoma County, California

I am a law enforcement officer. I have no reason to lie about what I saw and frankly I don't care if anyone believes me. I have heard of these kind of things here and there but never paid close attention to it or laughed it off. It's not that I didn't believe, I'd just believe it when I saw it. It was a very warm, almost hot evening just after or before labor day in 2007. It was dark, around 8:30 or 9:00 PM but the sky was still a little lit up in the West that time of year. I was on patrol, driving W/B on Hwy 128 out of Cloverdale going to an alarm call out at some ranch property. Those calls are very common. As a law enforcement officer, you notice things out of place. A car here that wasn't parked there yesterday, a person walking along the road in a desolate area, lights on in a closed business....things like that. Things just catch your eye that other people don't notice. Like I said, I was driving W/B and saw someone coming up out of the ravine onto the roadside. I can't describe it...I just saw the movement in the brush and knew it was someone. People run from us all the time and I thought I may have surprised someone who might be growing marijuana in the woods or something like that. It happens a lot here. I saw the outline of a body, the reflection of my headlights in it's eyes and it ducked back into the scrub brush before I passed it. Thinking it was someone trying to avoid or hide from me, I hit the brakes and backed up quickly. That's when I saw it in my headlight beams. It was about 6-7 ft tall, thick matted brown fur and walking upright. I did not see the face, it was walking away from me but slowly. Like everyone else says, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was definitely something I was not gonna put out on the radio. There were a lot of branches and overgrowth in the way, but there was no mistake on what I saw. I specifically remember two things. One was that it had small leaves and grass matted into its fur all over its back. I saw that as it walked away from me. I remember that vividly. Second, I remember that it used slow, deliberate movements. It walked away and used its arm to swipe small limbs and twigs out of its way. I saw it from the backside for a good 4-5 seconds before it disappeared into the overgrowth again. I then got out of my car and stood there for about 2-3 minutes with the engine off. I could hear the same slow movements and crunching of leaves and sticks for a while. I could hear it down there making its way into the creek area. Everytime I stopped hearing it and would start to walk back to my car, I'd hear a "Crunch" in the distance and I'd listen a bit longer. There is a creek down in that ravine which is probably where it went back to. Needless to say, I told no one. This wasn't something to bring up in briefing or to put in the patrol blotter. That would make for an extremely long and uncomfortable career for anyone. A friend of mine from back East told me about this website. I didn't know who else to contact. I almost contacted one of our Fish & Game Officers up here but he knew too many of my friends, so I just kept it quiet. I read a lot of other postings on here and it's nice to know I'm not alone. I've never seen a ghost, UFO or anything like that, but this really makes me wonder now what else is out there that we laugh off from time to time.