A LOOK BACK: Former officer ‘wanted to be a hero’

This is one of those stories that, 25 years later, people are probably still scratching their heads about it.

In February 1984, Costa Mesa police officer Bruce Ross found himself the center of attention in Southern California. Before sunrise Feb. 5, 1984, Ross was writing a ticket during a traffic stop on Newport Boulevard near Harbor Boulevard when he felt a painful thump in his back.

Concerned, but not panicked, Ross drove himself to the emergency room when he found blood seeping from his undershirt. He thought someone had thrown a rock as they drove past him in the opposite direction; that was until a nurse found the bullet in his bulletproof vest, according to news clips from the L.A. Times at the time.

“The officer turned white right in front of me,” emergency room nurse Sarah Sutliff was quoted as saying.

The vest saved his life and left only a 1 1/2 inch welt as a reminder of his near-death experience. Apparently, a random sniper had decided to take a shot at Ross’ back as they drove by, and had it not been for the bulletproof vest his mother and sisters had bought him that Christmas, he would’ve been dead, he told reporters in following days.

There was only one problem with Ross’ story, a flaw that floored the nurses, the public and the department: It wasn’t true.

In a case that reports at the time could only describe as “bizarre,” Ross later admitted he had faked the shooting.

Efforts to reach Ross were unsuccessful. Thanks to a tip from another Orange County police agency, Costa Mesa police pressed for more answers from Ross about this supposed shooting. Reports at the time said Ross had been investigated by federal authorities regarding his role in discovering a bomb near UC Irvine Medical Center when he was an officer for the university police department.

When Ross admitted to his colleagues he had staged the shooting two months later, he was fired. He revealed he had clamped a pencil-thin tear gas gun to a table then pulled the trigger with a string, firing it into his back.

Ross sought “notoriety,” then-Police Chief Roger Neth said. Edward Glasgow, a captain with the department at the time, said Ross “was misguided. He wanted the recognition of a hero whose life was in danger.”

The disgraced officer, who had been with Costa Mesa for two years, had offered such quotable gems as, “I’d rather sweat than bleed,” a reference to how hot wearing the vest made him, and “I don’t know if it was me or my badge...I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching the last couple days and I’m just very happy to be alive.”

According to reports at the time, Ross advocated vests being a mandatory part of the uniform and was seeking to repair the department’s image after a recent scandal involving another officer.

In a last-ditch effort to stay on the force, Ross requested a year of medical leave to seek psychological treatment. He was denied.

Upon getting word that the shooting was rigged, Ross’ nurse at the emergency room asked the million-dollar question, “What kind of person rigs up a shooting like that?”

Reporter JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at joseph.serna@latimes.com.