For the past three years, Lt. John Brunslik has been commander of the West Marin Sheriff’s Substation in Point Reyes Station, and by virtually all accounts, he has done an excellent job. Over time, a couple of "cowboy" deputies who once stirred up animosities on the coast have been transferred inland. Residents have found in Lt. Brunslik a sympathetic ear who can render practical advice. Public events are now receiving watchful, but low-key, oversight.
With so much going right these days, I’m disturbed that the Sheriff’s Department brass plans to transfer the commander to Civic Center in two weeks.
Those of you who lived in West Marin when the late Lt. Art Disterheft – a paragon of diplomacy – commanded the substation can remember how chaotic the command structure on the coast became following his transfer to San Rafael. I’d hate to see that happen again.
This is not the first time Lt. Brunslik has been assigned to West Marin, and he has come to realize that a different style of law enforcement is required here. In West Marin more than in East Marin, deputies can often do better talking troublemakers into behaving, Lt. Brunslik told me when he took over command here in September, 1998. On the coast, drunks are far more of a problem than robbers. Speeding motorcyclists are more of a danger than car thieves.
Lt. Brunslik is scheduled to retire in a year and a half, and it seems to me that we on the coast should fight for the right to squeeze the last few months of service out of him.
Although he once headed the county’s Major Crimes Task Force, he has been decidedly non-aggressive in going after growers of small pot patches here. He has helped resolve differences between citizens. He has set a tone of courteousness for coastal deputies.
I, therefore, urge anyone who doesn’t want to see the Sheriff’s Department try to fix something that ain’t broke to write Sheriff Bob Doyle at the Sheriff’s Office, 3501 Civic Center Drive, Room 145, San Rafael 94903. Lt. Brunslik’s reassignment is imminent, so please write this week, politely asking the sheriff to let us keep a good man down on the farm as long as possible.
I should note this request is entirely my idea. Lt. Brunslik is not behind it in any way although, I know, he likes working in West Marin.
When one looks at the troubles in other law-enforcement agencies, such as the Los Angeles and Oakland police departments, it’s easier to get a perspective on how good most Marin officers are. And not just in comparison with other local law-enforcement agencies.
The FBI, for example, hasn’t been able to stay out of scandal in recent years. The shooting at Ruby Ridge was a fiasco and possibly criminal. Racism pervaded the persecution of Dr. Wen Ho Lee, who was imprisoned one year on a 59-count indictment for supposedly making defense secrets available to either our ally Taiwan – or its mortal enemy, the People’s Republic. You pick. (To get out of prison, Lee finally pled guilty to one count of mishandling secret data.)
And then there’s the case of FBI agent Robert Philip Hanssen’s decade-long spying for the Soviet Union. He made other police misbehavior seem like peccadilloes.
Where were his supervisors? I mean, if you ran the FBI, wouldn’t you wonder what your agent in charge of domestic spying was really up to when he warned "that Philadelphia was ripe for Soviet intervention," to quote a Los Angeles Times article based on FBI documents.
Philadelphia? Most of us would have considered Cleveland riper. Or possibly even Toledo. In fact, I’m surprised that Bolinas didn’t rate a mention. Of course, when China aficionado Orville Schell moved out, there went the neighborhood.