Kansas Highway Patrol chief who resigned under pressure sues Gov. Kelly to get job back

A former leader of the Kansas Highway Patrol who resigned under pressure last year wants the state Supreme Court to force Gov. Laura Kelly to reinstate him in the agency.

Mark Bruce, who served as Highway Patrol superintendent until April, left amid questions about an alleged domestic violence incident involving another top official in the agency. Kelly’s administration placed him on leave in late March and Bruce resigned the same day.

Bruce filed a petition Wednesday with the Supreme Court asking the justices to order Kelly and the Highway Patrol to rehire him as a major, the rank he held when he became superintendent.

The petition contends Kansas law requires former Highway Patrol superintendents be returned to the same rank they held when they took over the agency.

In an interview, Bruce said he wants to clear his name and noted he hasn’t worked since leaving the agency. He estimated his abrupt departure could ultimately cost him $500,000 in retirement benefits.

“I’m a second-generation trooper. This has been my entire life,” Bruce said. “Although difficult circumstances, (the lawsuit) provides me a forum for people to see who the real me is again and for me to kind of untarnish my name, both within the Patrol and with those connections that I have.”

According to Bruce’s petition, Kelly chief of staff Will Lawrence wrote a March 28 letter to Bruce placing him on administrative leave. Later that day, Bruce provided Lawrence with a letter of resignation, effective April 6.

The petition alleges that since then, Bruce has made repeated requests through an attorney to be returned to the rank of major but that the Highway Patrol and Kelly have refused.

Kelly spokeswoman Dena Sattler said the governor’s office doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

“As he states in his petition, Mark Bruce voluntarily resigned,” Sattler said.

Bruce’s second-in-command, Lt. Col. Randy Moon, also left the Highway Patrol last spring. An anonymous email making allegations of impropriety by the agency’s leadership – including an accusation of domestic violence by Moon — had been circulating for weeks.

Bruce said he met with Kelly’s chief of staff, Will Lawrence, on March 28 and was told then he wouldn’t be kept on as superintendent – the same day Lawrence placed Bruce on administrative leave and Bruce resigned.

Their conversation centered on an alleged incident involving Moon, according to Bruce. Police in Excelsior Springs, Mo., responded to a resort on Dec. 26, 2018, and found a woman who “held her left elbow as if it were injured,” one officer said in his report. Another officer noted what appeared to be a knot on the left side of her face.

Officers were told a male suspect was a Kansas state trooper. The next morning, police spoke to the man and woman on the phone. The man said there had been a verbal fight and the woman denied anything physical had happened.

The investigation was closed through an exceptional clearance, meaning the woman did not file a report. No criminal charges were ever filed.

The incident happened before Kelly took office and Bruce said he informed her transition team within 24 hours. He also said he asked the Highway Patrol’s professional standards unit to investigate and that the unit, which reported to him, determined no violation of law or agency policy had occurred.

“There was no intent to act inappropriately or try to sweep anything under the carpet,” Bruce said.

When Bruce resigned, a spokeswoman for Kelly said “information came to light regarding some longstanding management issues at the Highway Patrol and as a result it became clear new leadership was needed.”

Before he left, Bruce had been one of the few major officials appointed by Gov. Sam Brownback to survive the transition to Kelly. Bruce had been with the Highway Patrol since 1989 and rose through the ranks before Brownback named him superintendent in 2015.

Herman Jones, a former Shawnee County sheriff, now leads the Highway Patrol.

This story was originally published January 16, 2020 at 11:00 AM.