Pubdate: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 Source: Toronto Sun (CN ON) Copyright: 2009 Canoe Limited Partnership Contact: http://torontosun.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/457 Author: Mark Bonokoski KING OF THE BUST BROTHERS Family, Friends Gather For Undercover Drug Cop Who Helped Arrest More Than 3,500 Before there was a fictional Starsky and Hutch, there was a real-life King and Waddell -- two long-haired and often bearded undercover Toronto drug cops who busted more people in their seven-year partnership than most small towns have citizenry. Some 3,500 busts, in fact. As a result, Pete King and Bob Waddell became both legend and myth, feared by the drug dealers back in the late '60s and early '70s like no other duo before or since, and with stories that only grew taller with the telling. Those who were drug dealers back then, and plying their trade out of Toronto's equally legendary Rochdale College, have probably met King and Waddell, or at least remember their pictures being plastered everywhere as Public Enemy No. 1 to the drug culture. On one November night alone back in 1972, for example, King and Waddell made front-page news following 35 drug arrests in close proximity to Rochdale College, an alternative school highrise at the corner of Bloor and Huron St. -- all the while never venturing too close to the building itself, thereby avoiding the predictable torrent of beer bottles, bricks and debris that always accompanied their arrival. "Those were good times," says Waddell, in reflection. "They really were." Pete King's son, Stephen, now in his 40s, remembers being in a Barrie bar when he was a kid of 20, and having a tattooed biker waltz up to him and demand to know if he was related to the then-retired drug cop with the bulldog neck and the bulldog glare, so strong was the resemblance. "Yes, he's my father," Stephen King recalls saying. "Well, that son-of-a-bitch father of yours once shot me in the leg," the biker tells him, and then he rolls up his pant leg to reveal a scar from a bullet wound. Bob Waddell, who left the force in 1989 to take up executive positions as a security analyst at various multinational banks, says King never shot anyone in his 33-year career on the Metro Toronto Police, much of it undercover. And neither did he -- although they had their share of guns being pulled on them. "Criminals tend to lie, and embellish," says Waddell. At 11 a.m. today, there will be a funeral service for Peter Thomas King -- retired Detective, Badge 721, father of three, grandfather of five, Lake Scugog resident, snowplower by trade, and avid bass fisherman by choice -- at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Lindsay. He died early Saturday morning at Ross Memorial Hospital, less than two weeks after quietly being admitted with terminal cancer. He was 67. "No one knew he had cancer. If he knew himself, he sure didn't tell anyone," says son, Stephen. "My father hated hospitals. His idea of getting healthy was to go on a diet and lose some weight." Bob Waddell, who considered Pete King a brother, always marvelled at his former partner's strength. In his prime, for example, King used to do handstands up the stairs at the old 52 Division headquarters on College St. Back in 1965, during a fishing trip on Rice Lake with another Metro cop named Alfred Shallhace, a sudden storm capsized their small boat 3 km out from shore. Shallhace, then 23, decided to stay with the overturned boat as King set out to swim to shore through the cold October water -- setting his sights on a lighted church cross far off in the distance. "You'll never make it. I hate to see you go this way," Shallhace shouted at King, as he watched him head out into the darkness, stroking through four-foot waves. King glanced back and saw Shallhace clinging to a gas can and his lifejacket, his last image of his friend. After battling the waves for more than three hours, the then 23-year-old King was found clinging to a shoreline rock near the Hiawatha First Nations Reserve. And Shallhace was later found drowned, having finally succumbed to hypothermia. "King was a bulldog," says Waddell. "No question about it. He was as tough as they came." On Sunday, the day before the first hours of visitation, Stephen King, and his uncle, Randy King, were recalling just how tough he was, and how his fear of hospitals had him ignoring the early warning signs of potential ill health. "He was at a BBQ at my place," says brother Randy. "He was having steak, and telling me it was the best corn he had ever had and, the next morning, he's telling me he isn't feeling well, and that he just might visit the hospital. "Twelve days later he was dead. "A lot of people linger," he adds. "But Pete would not have wanted to linger, and so he didn't. "If there is any good news, that's it." Postscript: In the spirit of remembrance, 31 years ago on this day, during the investigation of a neighbour dispute, Metro Toronto Const. Harry Snedden was killed when a suspect gained control of his service revolver during the arrest, and shot him once in the chest. He was 22. - --- MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart