MINOT — For 30 years, Percy Turner worked as a Maine State Police trooper patrolling in the Oxford area. And for those 30 years, the people he met would tell him stories about his predecessor, Trooper Fred Ladd.

“For my whole career, people would tell me stories about him — about how he treated them or the things he had done. And they were always positive stories,” Turner said. “Fred Ladd was a hard act to follow.”

Ladd, the last trooper to patrol on a motorcycle, died Thursday. He was 86.

A trooper from 1948 until 1969, he was officially designated a “Legendary Trooper” in 2004 at a ceremony with the governor. But it was only a formality. Ladd had been considered a legend long before that.

“I came out of the academy in 1976 and he had retired in 1969,” Turner said. “It didn’t take me long to realize that people expected me to perform my duties at the same level he had. Those people set the bar by telling me all of the great things he had done. And this was seven or eight years after he had retired.”

Ladd was beloved by the people he served, but that didn’t mean he could avoid the ugly side of police work. In 1964, Ladd got involved at the end of a chase with a man who had robbed a pair of banks in Massachusetts and then shot up a gun store in Portland.

The pursuit was dramatic. Shots were exchanged between the suspect and the officers following as the chase continued for more than 30 miles between Portland and Oxford. Police were afraid the desperate criminal would hurt an innocent, either through reckless conduct or with a firearm.

But when the chase entered Oxford, an area patrolled by Ladd, it came to an end. A 41-year-old trooper at the time, Ladd fired a shot from a rifle and killed the fleeing bandit.

“Ladd later told me, ‘I had to put a stop to it. He came into my patrol,’” recalled Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Stephen McCausland.

In 1951, the state police stopped using motorcycles as part of their patrols. Ladd was the last one to use it and had to turn it over in August of that year.

“I have a photo of him sitting on it the day he turned it in,” Turner said. The framed photograph is currently on loan to the Maine Criminal Justice Academy.

Turner said although it was clear Ladd was adored by a great deal of the people he protected, he earned more than affection as he went about his duties. Even those who had cause not to like the officer had to know that he was a good cop who did his job well.

“He was respected,” Turner said. “He was very well respected.”

This was the shooting scene in Oxford in August of 1964 when Maine State Trooper Fred Ladd fired the fatal shot that stopped a fleeing bank robber. Ladd is not shown.