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.