CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – Years before he was slain in a traffic stop gone wrong, Franconia Police Cpl. Bruce McKay was warned by a colleague that his attitude could cause problems.

“Based on my previous knowledge of Cpl. McKay’s demeanor, this matter-of-fact attitude can come across as “hostile or confrontational,” wrote Sgt. Mark Taylor, responding to a complaint about McKay’s handling of a traffic stop. Taylor noted McKay’s attitude “had caused him problems in the past.”

In 10 complaints filed against McKay during his 11-year career in Franconia, people involved in traffic stops, arrests and other incidents with him described him as unprofessional, confrontational, quick to anger and capable of holding a grudge.

“Bruce McKay has serious power and control issues” wrote one woman, who complained of “terrorizing” behavior from McKay during a traffic stop for suspected drunk driving.

McKay also received 29 commendations, including from the town, state and Congress for helping to capture Gordon Perry and Kevin Paul in 1997 after they shot and killed Epsom police officer Jeremy Charron, along with letters of thanks for more mundane police work.

“He’s a credit to your department,” one grateful woman wrote in 2002 after McKay helped find her husband at a camping area.

“Your patrolman was absolutely wonderful!” wrote another thanking McKay for helping her elderly father.

The town of Franconia released the documents this week through lawyer Daniel Mullen of Concord, following a Right to Know request by the Concord Monitor. Most of the names were blacked out.

Taken together, they support the conflicting impressions of McKay that have emerged since his death in May during a traffic stop in Franconia involving Liko Kenney, a cousin of skier Bode Miller who had a contentious history with the officer. Kenney’s family and friends said the young man feared McKay and carried a gun to protect himself.

Kenney had fled the scene when McKay first pulled him over for speeding and an expired registration; the shootings happened after McKay caught up with him down the road. Kenney, 24, shot and ran over McKay, 48, after McKay pinned Kenney’s car and pepper-sprayed him. Kenney was killed moments later by a passer-by who picked up McKay’s gun.

The aftermath of the deaths roiled Franconia, with Kenney family supporters describing McKay as an overzealous bully cop who should have been curbed sooner and others who described McKay as a dedicated officer.

The documents show the roots of some of those perceptions. Most of the complaints were filed in 1997.

That January, a driver complained of being harassed by McKay during a traffic stop. The driver had already been ticketed for having an uninspected vehicle and was driving 32 mph in a 30 mph zone when McKay pulled up. McKay said the car would have to be towed, refused to explain why, and pointed pepper spray at the driver, according to the complaint. The driver wrote McKay at first denied pulling pepper spray to a state trooper, then backtracked.

In July 1997, one woman wrote a 13-page complaint describing how McKay pulled her over for possible drunk driving. The woman said McKay became angry with her when she questioned his orders and felt he was “toying” with her during a sobriety test by ordering to stand with one foot raised. She said later, while seated in the back seat of McKay’s cruiser, he took a knife and began cutting a seat belt away from her body without any verbal warning.

“I was terrorized!” the woman wrote. The woman, who was acquitted, blamed McKay for a six-month suspension of her driver’s license. She said McKay continued to target her after the incident, once following while she and her daughter were in their car to make sure she was not behind the wheel. The woman, who said she had worked as a youth parole officer and in prison psychiatric care, said McKay appeared to perceive situations poorly, lied to gain power and control, and recommended he seek counseling for “perception, communication and control issues.”

Also that month, a Franconia mother complained that McKay approached her daughter and a friend, ages 13 and 14, and asked them for identification because he was looking for runaways, he said. McKay complained the girls were rude; the woman asked if he’d introduced himself before making his request. “He replied that that wasn’t necessary to an officer with a uniform and a badge,” she wrote.

Ten days later, McKay responded to the woman’s home after girls there accidentally called 911 and suggested they could face a misdemeanor charge.

“Are we being harassed by an annoyed policeman who I complained about two weeks ago?” the woman wondered.

Others complained McKay overstepped his bounds as an officer. One driver complained of being pulled over by McKay for speeding in Bethlehem; a woman accused McKay of running a criminal background check on her boyfriend as a favor to her estranged husband, who was a friend of McKay’s.

“Officer was very unnecessarily confrontational and belittling in his language in what otherwise was a traffic mistake … Your town gets a lot from tourism – don’t treat us like criminals!” wrote one person complaining about McKay in a June 2005 traffic stop.

In the days after the shooting, Franconia Chief Montminy said McKay was a professional who did his job well and treated everyone the same.

But personnel documents show McKay could rub his colleagues the wrong way.

Montminy and Taylor didn’t mince words in responding to a letter from a woman complaining McKay had been left out of an award ceremony honoring other officers involved in the Perry and Paul arrests.

“If Officer McKay is not satisfied with the recognition he received, then maybe this department is not to his satisfaction,” Montminy wrote, noting McKay already had received other commendations.

“To be upset about not getting medals and awards for catching the bad guys is crazy … If officer McKay joined the police force to collect medals and awards he is in the wrong line of work and should most likely seek another line of employment. Maybe the Olympics,” Taylor wrote.