When Brent Clearman was a boy, his sister
recalls, he had two dreams: to be a Marine, and to join the
California Highway Patrol.
"He always wanted to be a Marine, and he
always had this fascination with the CHP from watching TV and
movies,'' said Ann Marie Uyematsu. "CHiPs -- that was his
favorite show.''
Her brother lived out the first dream and
was in the middle of the second when he died Sunday of injuries
he suffered in a hit-and-run crash on Interstate 880 in Oakland.
Clearman, 33, died late Sunday morning at
Highland Hospital in Oakland of massive injuries he sustained
Saturday night when a hit-and-run driver struck him at 10:35
p.m. on the 66th Avenue on-ramp to northbound Interstate 880.
Clearman had left his patrol car to investigate a minor crash on
the left side of the ramp.
Clearman, who lived with his wife, Cathy
Jo, in Concord, is the seventh CHP officer to be killed in the
line of duty since Sept. 23, 2005.
Clearman joined the CHP two years ago, and
started working out of the Oakland office immediately after
graduating from the CHP academy.
The officer grew up with four sisters in
Ocean Park, Wash., Uyematsu said. She and their father, William,
said Brent played with his father's old Army gear and
photographs when he was little. When he grew older, he went on
ride-alongs with law enforcement agencies and joined a shore
patrol that used personal watercraft to rescue people off the
Long Beach shoreline in Washington.
"As a dad, I didn't always understand what
he was trying to do,'' said his father, saying that his son had
more interest in those activities than in school.
"He was a very, very smart kid,'' Uyematsu
said. "School wasn't enough for him.''
Clearman spent 12 years in the U.S. Marine
Corps, including service in Iraq. A sharpshooter and expert in
mountaineering and mountain warfare, he left the Marines in 2003
as a staff sergeant.
Before joining the CHP, he traveled the
United States and Canada training snipers for law enforcement
agencies, including the Highway Patrol.
He and Cathy Jo were married in Virginia
City, Nev., in the late 1990s, his father said.
With the CHP, Clearman went to Louisiana
after Hurricane Katrina, where Commissioner Brown met him.
"From what I saw, he's the poster child of
what we are looking for in the Highway Patrol -- someone who's
good at what they do, shows respect for the public and is proud
of the job he is asked to do,'' Brown said.
Colleagues in the Oakland office said
Clearman was soft-spoken and hard-working. Capt. James Leonard
said Clearman and his partner in one recent month arrested 33
people on suspicion of driving under the influence -- an
uncommonly high number.
"We lost a hero last night,'' Leonard
said. "He was out there protecting our families, and he got
killed doing it.''
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