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Published on Sunday, July 20, 2003
in the Palm Beach Post
When you're perhaps the world's tallest policeman, larger than life stories about you pile up in a hurry.
And for Florida Highway Patrol spokesman Lt. Pembrook Burrows, who retires Aug. 1 after 31 years with the agency, they're legion.
"I'm 6-feet-2 and I have to look up at him," former FHP Lt. Max Shell said of the 7-foot Burrows, recalling the most often repeated tall tale.
"The biggest story about him concerns the time he stopped a semi in the Panhandle, and when he walked up to the truck, the driver said, 'Get off my running board.' Then Pembrook quietly told him he was not standing on the running board."
Another trooper once said, "He doesn't have to get tough with drivers. When they look out their window, they're staring at his belt buckle."
In 1988, Burrow's height snared international attention when he was flown to Australia to appear on a Sydney television show called Just For the Record, which dubbed him the world's tallest policeman. He flew first-class because (why else?) he couldn't fit in coach.
Jim Howell, chief of public affairs for the highway patrol in Tallahassee, was the agency's spokesman for Palm Beach County and surrounding counties before Burrows took over nine years ago.
"I always felt like we were Mutt and Jeff when I was with him, and I'm 6-3," Howell said. "He's about the most gentle spirit you'll ever meet. People see a brute of a man, and he isn't."
Those he dealt with outside the force also hold him in high regard.
"He's an incredible guy and has always been available to us," said Peter Dobens, assignment manager for WPBF-Channel 25. "Anytime we've needed a ride-along, he's been extremely accommodating."
The unassuming Burrows, a West Palm Beach native and former star basketball player at the old Roosevelt High School and Jacksonville University, said last week that at age 54, it's simply time to hang up his pistol belt.
Thinking back over the years, he said his most satisfying moment was when a woman spotted him at a seat belt campaign meeting and thanked him many years after he had arrested her for DUI.
"You saved my life," she told him.
Burrows said he always wanted to be a trooper, and got a lot of satisfaction being a role model for youth.
"I try to impress on them, if I had the opportunity to do it, so can you," he said. "I never expected to be where I am."
In 1984 he became the first black corporal in the FHP when he was working in Pensacola, and moved back to his home town of West Palm Beach where he eventually got off road patrol to write press releases and answer reporters' never-ending questions. But no story about Burrows would be complete without the speeding excuse. He once stopped two cars that were traveling together for excessive speed, and the driver of the first car told him they were late for a funeral.
When he asked the driver of the second car where the funeral was, he said, "What funeral? We're going to Disney World." The citation book came out.
Becoming serious, he said, the ticket books unfortunately don't come out often enough. At any given time in Palm Beach County only five or six troopers are on patrol -- half the number that is needed to make a serious dent in traffic deaths and injuries. "When people see more troopers, they slow down and the crash and death rates would go down," Burrows said. "We're responding to calls but not doing the level of enforcement that would be ideal."
For a guy who could dunk a ball practically without jumping and was drafted by the NBA but cut during tryouts, he doesn't set foot on the court anymore. "I'm retired. I've got bad knees," he said.
Burrows, who is married and has two grown children, said he wants to take six months off and then leave all his options open.
"I want to do some traveling, go to school, learn a little more about computers, fish and learn how to play golf."