Man dies after road altercation

Glacier National Park officials are being tight-lipped about the circumstances surrounding the death of a Browning man in the Two  Medicine Valley on Thursday morning.

Clinton Croff, 30, was “involved in altercations near road construction traffic on the road into the Two Medicine Valley,” a park press release states.

But the father of one of the men involved in the incident contacted the Inter Lake and provided an account.

The father, who declined to be identified, said his son was on the way out of the Two Medicine area with one of his co-workers following in another vehicle.

They were stopped by a flagman at a construction zone and told they would have to wait for about 20 minutes. As they waited, a speeding vehicle approached from behind, prompting the co-worker to pull ahead to avoid being rear-ended.

The speeding vehicle then rear-ended the son’s vehicle. As the son approached the vehicle, “this guy was in the act of stabbing himself in the chest and neck with scissors,” the man said, adding that his son has emergency medical training so he tried to calm him down, but instead he was punched in the face.

So he returned to his truck for heavy gloves to try to get the scissors away. That effort failed, and a flagman approached with a firearm.

“The guy said go ahead and shoot me,” our source said, but the flagman instead called for someone to bring some pepper spray.

“They gave him a full can right in the face and it didn’t faze him at all. He kept coming,” he said. A construction worker approached and attempted to help, and eventually a park ranger arrived.

“The ranger showed up and there was a struggle. They wound up tumbling into a ditch,” he said. At that point several men assisted the ranger in restraining and handcuffing the man. 

“Park rangers responded to the incident, found Mr. Croff combative and suffering from multiple wounds,” the park’s press release states. “Rangers secured Croff and began emergency medical treatment. Shortly after he was detained, Croff collapsed and (CPR) was administered.”

Those efforts were unsuccessful and Croff was pronounced dead of undetermined causes when the ALERT helicopter arrived at the scene at about 11:30 a.m.

Park officials would not elaborate on the incident.

The incident is under investigation, with the park getting assistance from the National Park Service’s Office of Investigative Services. An autopsy was conducted Friday at the State Crime Lab in Missoula.