From our trip up Independence. I'm going to defer to "there may have been more going on than I was aware of ..." but, felt like this was a smidge excessive, to drive a few miles ahead at normal speeds, and flip a u-ey. I keep hearing about 'maybe it was a cancelled call". We saw no signs of emergency, disabled vehicle, car down the mountain, etc.
For perspective - we'd been in stop/go traffic because of the light. And there was a lot of it, like a mile or two. The light protects a one-lane section of SH 82. Given the traffic, the cop would have had to be driving on the wrong side, then ducking into [somewhere] every time that light let traffic go downhill.
When we encountered him again a few miles up, he was driving normally, then pulled off and flipped a U behind us.