Point Reyes Light- December 31, 1998

Christmas Day arrest sparks furor

Three West Marin teenagers were handcuffed and held at gunpoint early Christmas morning after they stopped at the Bank of Petaluma ATM in Point Reyes Station so one of them could make a withdrawal.

From what the boys quoted deputies as saying, it appears the officers suspected the teenagers were intending to burglarize the bank.

But during most of their ordeal, the boys said they didn't know why the officers pointed their guns at them.

The youth planning to make the ATM withdrawal was Dustin Wise, 17, of Point Reyes Station who had just gotten off work at Manka's restaurant in Inverness.

The bizarre incident began about 12:45 a.m. when the teens in a Jeep driven by Nick Scott, 16, parked at the curb beside the bank and a patrolcar driven by deputy Chad Yeager immediately pulled up behind them.

Before Wise had time to find his Versateller card and get out of the Jeep, the boys found themselves being ordered not to move and to keep their hands where officers could see them.

In the report Yeager later filed, the deputy wrote that he became suspicious of the boys being parked outside the bank when the "front passenger" (Wise) leaned forward in a "furtive movement," as if he were trying to conceal something, said Lt. John Brunslik.

Although the boys claimed officers repeatedly threatened to shoot them in the head, the only youth arrested was Scott. After searching the Jeep, deputies charged him with possessing an illegal weapon found in the car.

The weapon, brass knuckles, had been made by Scott in a welding shop class, he told The Light. "I was just messing around. I made them to see if I could because they're cool and hard to make. And I'm really into welding.

"I've never used them in a fight," Scott said, adding, "I've never gotten into a fight in my life."

From the point of view of Scott and his parents, the boys' encounter with two deputies and two Highway Patrolmen was merely the most recent incident of officers' routine harassment of West Marin teenagers.

Their complaint was bolstered this week when three well-known West Marin adults said they too have been subjected to unwarranted harassment by officers during the past year or two.

With accusations swirling about, Lt. Brunslik, the new commander of the West Marin Sheriff's Substation, said he would welcome a public meeting to discuss some residents' complaints about teenagers and teenagers' claims of harassment.

Citing alleged instances of harassment against teens, Scott told The Light that during the past year he and his friends have repeatedly been stopped while driving and deputies have nit-picked their vehicles until they managed to find something wrong.

Scott said he has also been told to move along while merely hanging out with friends in downtown Point Reyes Station.

Notwithstanding these experiences, the 16-year-old said he was completely unprepared when deputy Yeager initially shone a spotlight into his Jeep outside the Bank of Petaluma.

"It's Christmas morning, and we're not doing anything wrong, so we didn't really pay attention," Scott said. "But then, he came up to our car and took all three of our [drivers'] licenses."

Yeager then, Scott recounted, "went back to his car and said on a loudspeaker, 'Put your hands where I can see them, and don't move them at all. I have a gun pointed at you.'

"We were totally confused as to why he was pointing a gun at us," Scott noted, adding that he and his friends were too afraid to ask any questions.

Scott said that he, Wise, and their friend Ryan Johnson, 19, of Tomales waited for about a half-hour, not moving their hands an inch while Deputy Yeager apparently called for backup officers.

The youth said he and his companions were freezing because the windows were rolled down in his dad's Jeep Cherokee and they were wearing t-shirts without jackets.

Eventually, a CHP patrolcar and a second sheriff's vehicle showed up. In the Highway Patrol vehicle were officers Amir Tabarsi and Paul Perez while deputy Ken Jones, who had been patrolling in the San Geronimo Valley was in the second sheriff's vehicle, Lt. Brunslik later reported.

After parking behind the Jeep, some of the newly arrived officers apparently got out of their cars and pulled their guns. "We were facing forward, and didn't see all of the cops. But we assumed they had guns because [deputy] Yeager said, 'Don't move! We have loaded weapons pointed at your heads,'" Scott reported.

Wise was ordered to get out of the Jeep and walk backwards toward the officers with his hands interlocked over his head, the boy said.

"They searched me, and they handcuffed me, and put me in Yeager's [Ford] Expedition. Their guns were drawn the whole time," Wise told The Light on Tuesday.

"I wasn't as afraid as I was pissed off," said Wise, "because there was no reason whatsoever that they had to do that at all. There were four armed men against three kids. It's a little overkill, if you ask me."

The only suspicious objects lawmen found on Wise were some felt-tipped markers and a marijuana pipe, the boy said.

Next, Scott was ordered out of the Jeep.

"They told me to get out of car slowly and kept saying to me, 'We have a loaded weapon pointed at your head. Move slowly. Don't make any sudden movements or you could die right now,'" the youth recounted.

Scott said he was told repeatedly to raise his hands higher and higher into the air as he walked backwards toward deputy Yeager.

"When I got near him, he pulled my arms behind my back and handcuffed me. Then he searched me, and found a pipe in my pocket and a little bit of marijuana in my sock. Then he put me in the back of his Expedition beside Dustin."

How close did any officer's gun actually came to his head that morning? "As close as two feet away," Scott responded, adding that he was sure about that.

Finally, Johnson was ordered out of the Jeep. He was also searched and handcuffed. But instead of locking him inside a patrolcar, officers made him sit on the ground awhile outside Yeager's vehicle. Johnson was later put in the second sheriff's patrolcar.

"I could understand pulling us over if this was Oakland or San Francisco, or if we were actually doing something," Johnson told The Light on Tuesday. "But this is a small town with local kids. Everyone pretty much knows each other and knows no one's going to do anything on Christmas Eve."

What happened when deputies Yeager and Jones searched the Jeep?

"I didn't know what they found or what they had," replied Scott. "We still didn't know why they were doing this, but this didn't surprise us, because [the deputies] stop us, search us, and harass us all the time for no reason."

Deputy Yeager later reported that while searching the Jeep, he uncovered a set of "homemade" brass knuckles, which are illegal to possess or manufacture, Lt. Brunslik noted.

While Scott wasn't cited on charges of possessing marijuana (he had just a small amount in his sock), he was cited on charges of possessing brass knuckles, a felony.

After searching the Jeep, Scott said, deputy Yeager pulled him out of the patrolcar, walked him to the bank's ATM machine, and said, "You had a loaded weapon pointed at the back of your head, and you could have been dead on the pavement Christmas morning. And it would have been your fault. How does that make you feel?"

He said the same thing to Wise and Johnson, the other two boys told The Light.

"He kept saying, 'How does that make you feel?' And I thought it was some sort of trick question," Scott said. "But I said, 'It makes me feel like I wasn't doing anything wrong and stupid police pulled me out of my car for no reason. I feel like I'm being harassed.'"

Apparently, this wasn't what officers wanted to hear, Scott speculated, for deputy Yeager and another officer then began to taunt him. "They asked me, 'What should we do with you now, huh?' And I said, 'I don't know what, but you're in charge.'"

The officers then began joking about who was "in charge," Scott said. "The other deputy said that if he was in charge, he'd lock me up in juvie hall and that I wouldn't be let out until Monday morning. And that he'd have my dad's car towed."

The two deputies then put him back in Yeager's patrolcar, locked him in the cage, and told his two friends to "go home," Scott said.

While his friends were leaving, he noted, "they gave me this look like, 'Oh, shit!' And I was scared they'd have to sleep in a gutter somewhere because they were supposed to sleep at my house. Dustin's parents were in Oregon, and Ryan had no way to get home."

As for himself, Scott said, he feared that he would end up spending Christmas weekend locked up in juvenile hall. He also feared that his father, Alan Scott of Marshall, would be stuck with an expensive bill for having his Jeep towed.

"When Yeager returned to the Expedition, I asked him not to tow the car while I was at juvie hall, but he said, 'I'm just going to take you to the substation for now.'"

While somewhat relieved by this news, Scott said he was later disturbed by what deputy Yeager told, and didn't tell, his mother when she came to pick the boy up.

"He was telling her lies - like he suspected that we were robbing the bank. And he didn't tell her anything about the guns," Scott said.

Laura Scott told The Light on Monday that she shared her son's concern about deputy Yeager's behavior and questioned the deputy's honesty.

"I'm real upset. I didn't find out about the guns drawn until Nick told me later. And I believe him completely," she said.

In a written report he filed later, Yeager wrote, "I called for backup, and I held the subjects at gunpoint for officer safety,'" Brunslik noted.

Upon approaching the Jeep, deputy Yeager spotted a BB gun in the back and suspected that more guns might be involved, said Lt. Brunslik, who said this information came from radio transmissions made by Yeager and recorded on the sheriff dispatcher's log.

The radio log sheds little light, however, on the events described by the boys since it merely records the timeline and type of calls put out by deputy Yeager, Brunslik added.

According to the log, Yeager reported seeing the boys outside the bank at 12:47 a.m. on Christmas Day, requested backup assistance at 12:49 a.m., acknowledged the arrival of two CHP officers at 12:56 a.m., and issued a "Code 4" (no additional help needed) at 1:06 a.m.

Lt. Brunslik said that he doesn't know exactly what happened between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m., when Scott was released to his mother at the substation.

"There was nothing in the officer's report as to what happened during these times, nor would I expect there to be," the lieutenant said. Such information would be generated only through a investigation. "I want to begin investigating this incident soon, even if we don't have a complaint in writing," the lieutenant added.

Deputy Yeager meanwhile has been transferred from West Marin to Marin City, Lt. Brunslik noted. The deputy had known about the transfer at least a week before Christmas, he said. Yeager served his last shift here on Dec. 26.

Despite the transfer, Laura Scott remains upset with officers' "excessive use of violence." The three boys' lives were needlessly put in danger, she told The Light, adding that she intends to file a formal complaint with the Sheriff's Department.

Until the latest incident, Scott said, she hadn't really acted upon her son's accounts of harassment by officers. "He and some of the teenagers here have told me their stories about the sheriffs, and I'd say, 'This is America. They can't treat you this way!'

"But they'd say, 'No, this is Point Reyes Station. They can treat you any way they want.' I'm rah-rah! Go Constitution! And they're cynical because they're not treated as if they have any rights."

Officers target teens as the main troublemakers in West Marin, Scott said, adding that she's noticed this while teaching at Papermill Creek Children's Corner.

"Preschoolers are treated like little treasures by the sheriffs. Why do they treat these same kids like scum when they're 10 years older? I've seen sheriffs shouting and cussing at teens hanging out on Third Street - just for sitting on a bench!"

In addition, she said, some deputies mistakenly believe that many teens here are gang members.

When asked about local gang-related activity in West Marin, all the boys said there isn't any.

A group of teens from the Point Reyes area call themselves "PRC" (from Point Reyes County), but most high schoolers here are on friendly terms and have no need to divide up into gangs, they said.

Nevertheless, Lt. Brunslik said, some teens here have vandalized street signs by tagging them with "PRC" or other graffiti.

In some cities, youth gangs mark their territory with "tags." In West Marin, however, tagging has typically been more in the "Kilroy Was Here" tradition, ranging from "Skids" in the 1970s to "Vulva-lutionaries" in the 1990s.

PRC has nothing to do with violence, said Nick Scott, who speculated that deputies recently transferred from East Marin to West Marin retain their suspicion of teens because there is some gang activity over the hill.

"Many of the cops come from Marin City. They expect to find some crime. But the most they ever find on us is a little marijuana."

Meantime, kids here have learned not to turn to cops when they need help, said Virgil Levinger, a teenager from Inverness Park.

"Every time we see a cop, we run even if we haven't done anything wrong," Levinger said. "They stop us so frequently for no reason. Or they make up little excuses later, like there's a crack in the windshield, a missing gas cap, or a bald tire."

But teenagers aren't alone in complaining about bullying by officers. Several adults told The Light this week they too have received heavy-handed treatment from West Marin deputies.

Rick Yoshimoto of Inverness Park, a prominent wood sculptor, told The Light Monday that he was mistreated by deputy Yeager several months ago after being pulled over for not wearing a seatbelt while driving on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard near Perry's Deli.

"He treated me very rudely. He would not answer any of my questions and would not tell me why I was stopped," Yoshimoto said. "He finally said what was going on when he gave me a ticket."

Yoshimoto said that when he stepped out of his car to ask Yeager a question, the deputy shouted at him to stay away and stand near the bushes.

"I was treated like a criminal, as if I needed to be feared. I can understand this kind of defensive behavior if this were a high crime area, but I don't believe I deserved this kind of treatment for not wearing a seat belt," Yoshimoto said.

A 60-year-old Point Reyes Station resident, who asked not to be identified, described another deputy's "inappropriately hostile manner" toward him a year ago.

"I was on my way to a meeting at the firehouse and picked up a crushed soda can in the street," he told The Light. "I dropped it near the curb to remind myself to pick it up for recycling after the meeting.

"As I dropped the can, a truck drove by, and the window rolled down, and a guy yelled, 'If you don't pick that up before I get in uniform, I'll cite you!'" The man was an off-duty deputy en route to work at the substation

"I wasn't given the chance to explain what I was doing," the resident complained. "He'd already made up his mind." Equally disturbing, he said, was the deputy's assertion that he was littering.

Upset by the deputy's "irresponsible" behavior, the resident wrote a complaint to the Sheriff's Department later that evening and sent it via registered mail.

Two days later, the resident said, he received a call from then Lt. Jim Riddell, then commander of the West Marin Substation, who apologized for the deputy's behavior.

Even more "odd and bizarre" was Inverness builder Marshall Livingston's experience with a deputy in 1996 while Livingston was rebuilding the old Livery Stable in Point Reyes Station.

Livingston this week recalled passing a sheriff's patrolcar parked on Third Street while driving toward B Street. Moments later, the deputy pulled him over near the Green Bridge.

As the builder recalls, the deputy "said over the loudspeaker, 'Stay in your car and put your hands up where I can see them.'"

Livingston said he put his hands up, not knowing why. "I felt like a criminal. I was really mad because [the deputy] knew me and we'd talked before. When he approached my car, I told him that this was totally inappropriate and uncalled for."

And why was Livingston pulled over? "The reason he gave me was to ask about an abandoned car that was parked on the Livery Stable property that I was purchasing from Toby [Giacomini]. I told him that the owner of the car had permission to park his car there."

Livingston said he considered filing an formal complaint later, "but I decided to let it go. I figured it wasn't worth making any waves."

It's time to stop letting stories like these slide, said Laura Scott this week. She wants to coordinate a community meeting of concerned residents, parents, kids, and deputies to talk about any problems with law enforcement in West Marin.

She said she hopes the dialogue will improve relations between deputies and folks who live here.

"If there's a problem, let's talk about it," agreed Lt. Brunslik. "We want to be an asset to the community and not be seen as the bad guy."

Those interested in participating in a community meeting can contact Scott at 663-9260. The meeting's date and time will be announced later in The Light.

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