Retired officer culls wacky cop stories for book

In the middle of a street near Seattle’s St. James freeway exit, a shirtless muscular man stood on a ladder one night, pumping a heavy manhole cover as if it weighed no more than a pie plate.

Out from his chest. Over his head.

Out from his chest. Over his head…

Believing he had just entered the Twilight Zone, a Washington State Patrol trooper who was driving by pulled his cruiser over. He stepped out of the car and asked the obvious.

“So… what are you doing?”

The man kept his repetitions going while replying matter-of-factly:

“I’m saving the city.”

If the trooper’s curiosity wasn’t burning before, it was definitely flaming now.

“From what?” he asked.

“From the Rat People,” answered manhole man. “They’re going to eat the city.”

Bruce Clark (no relation) finishes the story and explodes with laughter.

If 28 years as a cop taught Clark anything, it is that humans are capable of the wildest, wackiest and weirdest behavior.

Clark, 55, retired as a Washington State Patrol lieutenant three years ago. For the last year, the Spokane man has been mining his law enforcement pals for their on-the-job memories. Clark has put the best anecdotes in a book he has dubbed, “In Service – Stories, Tales and Legends of the State Patrol.”

It will be a few months until the manuscript is finished. Even so, Clark agreed to sit down with me over lunch the other day and share a few of his favorite stories.

Based on what I heard, the author shouldn’t have trouble finding a publisher. The public has always had an insatiable thirst for a good cop yarn and Clark has collected some dandies.

Some of the funniest tales, however, involve his patrol brethren like the hapless sergeant he identifies only as Bob.

This took place in the early days of radar, in the late 1950s and 1960s. Back then, radar units were clunky gadgets that had to be set up on tripods at the side of a road. An officer would hide 10 or 15 feet away, monitoring the device and notifying waiting patrol cars via radio.

Locating a particularly soft and secluded patch of ground, Sgt. Bob set up a folding lounge chair that he covered with a blanket. Then he took his shirt off and began to enjoy life in the slow lane.

Savoring this moment in the warm sunshine, he fired up a cigar and kicked back.

Troopers up the road began to wonder about the long stretch of radio silence.

The wondering ended with Sgt. Bob’s frantic cry for help.

The patrolmen rushed to the scene to find poor Bob beating burning sage brush with his blanket.

It soon became clear what had happened. The sergeant had broken the first law of tobacco use: Don’t smoke while you sleep.

“Some 1,500 acres later, the blaze was brought under control,” Clark writes in his book. “Lost were one radar, one tripod, one portable radio and one lounge chair with surplus army blanket. ‘But hey!’ thought Sgt. Bob. ‘At least I saved my patrol car.’ “

For Clark, humor was always an antidote from the unavoidable stress that came with his job. He figures he attended to 200 fatal accidents during his career.

“If you don’t have a sense of humor,” he says, “the alternative of dealing with tough things is drinking.” He pauses. “Or insanity.”

Retirement hasn’t slowed down Clark. He and his wife, Sharon, have two teenage children.

Besides the writing, Clark keeps busy as a security consultant and teaching driver’s education classes for AAA. True to his good nature, he says he spices up his classes with jokes, law enforcement yarns and humorous driving-related video clips.

This guy isn’t above poking fun at his own disastrous moments.

One story he shares in his book is about the time his patrol car suddenly conked out during a high-speed chase. Clark pulled the powerful Plymouth cruiser over to the side of the highway and angrily radioed for someone to come and tow this “piece of junk” to a shop or a scrap yard.

The next day, Clark’s sergeant told him he’d probably have a lot better results if he remembered to put gas in the car.

Make no mistake, Clark loved his days prowling the highways for the patrol.

“When you put on your uniform your attitude changes,” he says. “It’s like putting on a red cape and wearing an ‘S’ on your chest.”

But despite the super powers, Clark concedes that there are some things that will always be beyond his knowledge.

“We’ll never know if the Rat People ate Seattle,” he says. “How could you tell?”