Frank Clark to hotel manager: "I will hit you like I hit her"

Frank Clark did not leave Michigan with the honor or salute given to a hero. The details that continue to emerge from his domestic violence incidents should only confirm that former coach Brady Hoke made the right decision in sending Clark away from the program.

Over the weekend, the Seattle Times published the results of its own investigation into Clark's past -- specifically the incident where Clark reportedly beat his girlfriend in an Ohio hotel room. The words and descriptions are disturbing:

A hotel night manager told police in Ohio that Seahawks top draft pick Frank Clark threatened her and admitted hitting his girlfriend during a Nov. 15 altercation, according to newly released documents.

In a statement to police in Sandusky, Ohio, the day after the incident, manager Stephanie Burkhardt wrote that soon after she entered the couple’s hotel room Clark told her, "I will hit you like I hit her" and shouldered her out of the way before leaving. The documents, obtained by The Seattle Times via public-records request, supplement the initial police report.

Reached by The Times via telephone Friday, Burkhardt repeated what she said Clark had told her.

"Yes, he said it,’’ she said. "I would never lie about something like that.’’

The threat toward the hotel manager Burkhardt wasn't the only new bit of information released, either:

• Police witness Kristie Colie, 43, one of two women in a room next to Clark’s, said in her written statement the next day that she comforted three young children who ran out of the room and kept telling her “their sister’s boyfriend was punching her in the face.
• Hurt refused medical treatment at the scene for a welt on her cheek, but did visit a hospital the next day. In a follow-up call, she told Officer Curran she “didn’t realize how swollen her cheek was” until after police left the hotel. She claimed she’d struck her cheek on an end table and that it had turned “black and blue.’’
• Perkins police Officer Brent Adams wrote that he had Clark in the back of his patrol cruiser the night of the arrest and Clark told him Hurt “had been drinking” before the altercation. A breath test showed her blood-alcohol level at .000.
• In the same report, Adams wrote that Clark claimed his father “was a Chief of Police.’’ Clark’s father denied that in a brief interview Friday.
• In an arrest warrant, Curran signed a sworn statement saying Clark had punched Hurt in the left side of the face.

The Times' investigation seems to be significantly more thorough than any background searching done on the part of the Seattle Seahawks, who drafted Clark despite character concerns in the 2nd round a little over a week ago, as well. It's not known how much of this information Michigan's athletic department might have known when choosing to dismiss Clark last November.