Bob Dodge came up through the ranks of the Seattle Police Department. He never forgot his rank-and-file origins.
He was a feisty Snohomish County sheriff who served in that capacity for 10 years.
Dodge battled with county budget makers for funds to hire deputies. He once punched a suspect in the face for shooting one of his men.
In short, he was a cop’s cop.
Dodge, 82, died Thursday night after a long illness.
Memorial arrangements still are pending, said his widow, Jean Dodge.
Dodge was a Seattle police sergeant when he was appointed sheriff by the then Snohomish County commissioners in 1977, after a primary election in which he defeated six other candidates aiming to replace Sheriff J.J. Harvey.
Harvey left in mid-term to become U.S. Marshal for Western Washington.
Dodge was an outsider, but deputies soon fell in love with him.
Current Sheriff Rick Bart recalls that a robbery suspect shot and wounded a sheriff’s deputy in south Everett not long after Dodge was appointed.
The suspect raced into the woods and officers gathered to plan how to approach the search for him. Bart, then a homicide detective, remembers a ranking officer lecturing deputies about remaining calm and professional.
When the suspect was brought out of the woods, “here comes this guy, and he punches (the suspect) right in the face,” Bart remembers.
“He said something to the effect that ‘you can’t do that to one of my deputies,’ ” Bart said. “We hadn’t met (Dodge) yet.”
When deputies learned that it was the new sheriff, “we all stood around and said, ‘That’s a cool sheriff,’ ” Bart said. “He was an instant hit with the deputies.”
He served from 1977 though 1987. He was re-elected twice.
His tenure was marked by the same rough-and-tumble attitude of the old-school cop that he was.
He battled county lawmakers to keep a search-and-rescue helicopter and a traffic division.
In the early 1980s, he accused the newly chartered Snohomish County Council of meddling with the duties of other elected county officials.
He reorganized the department, expanding the use of police dogs for tracking and precinct offices in outlying areas.
Dodge was a Seattle police officer for nearly 27 years, serving in a number of positions. When he was appointed to the sheriff’s job, Dodge was an administrative aide to an assistant Seattle police chief.
Harvey started a more professional attitude in the office, and Dodge continued that effort, Everett Police Chief Jim Scharf said. Scharf, a deputy sheriff when Dodge came into office, was mentored by Dodge and eventually succeeded him as sheriff. Scharf later left the sheriff’s job to become the police chief.
When Dodge came in, “you knew things were going to change around the office,” Scharf said. “He loved law enforcement. He loved being a cop and everything it represented. He never lost his zest for it.”
Bart said that Dodge listened to officers and once postponed a press conference at his request. The press conference was called to announce the arrest of triple murderer Charles Campbell for killing two women and a girl in Clearview.
Deputies never liked to be on his bad side, however. He had a temper.
“He was fair, but if he didn’t like what you were doing, you found out about it fast,” Bart said. “He was notorious for one-sided conversations in his office if you screwed up. In the end, you agreed to whatever (he was saying) when you left the office.”
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