Point Reyes Light - November 10, 2004
Sheriff Doyle explains why rangers deputized
By Dave Mitchell
The purpose of his deputizing Park Service rangers, Sheriff Bob Doyle told The Light Tuesday, is to give them authority to enforce state law on federal parkland. The intent is not to have them police the roads of West Marin.
It was Sheriff Doyle’s first comment to the press regarding the July 28 pepper-spraying of Chris, 18, and Jessica, 17, Miller of Inverness Park. The pepper-spraying occurred in Point Reyes Station and grew out of an earlier traffic stop near White House Pool.
Although not within a park, ranger Roger Mayo stopped two 18-year-old sailing instructors because their car lacked a front license plate. During the stop, Mayo yanked one of the sailing instructors, Emile Kempf, out of the car, ordered him on the ground, and taunted him with obscenities, Kempf later told the District Attorney’s Office.
Following the traffic stop, the two sailing instructors went to the Point Reyes Sheriff’s Substation and Point Reyes National Seashore headquarters to complain that Mayo had been abusive.
Following their complaints, the ranger hours later spotted their car parked on the levee road where the sailing instructors were visiting friends. He arrested them, took them to park headquarters, charged them with threatening behavior, and then (accompanied by ranger Angelina Gregorio) drove them back to Point Reyes Station to be released.
The Point Reyes National Seashore subsequently refused to say what ranger Mayo had claimed was threatening and instead dropped the charges. The Pacific West Region of the Park Service is now conducting a "review" of Mayo’s behavior during the traffic stop and its aftermath.
Mayo has been reassigned for now, but ranger Gregorio is back on duty in the National Seashore.
As the sailing instructors were about to be released near the Green Bridge, the Miller teens walked up, asking why their friends were in the cage of the rangers’ patrolcar. Rather than answer any questions, the rangers ordered them down on the ground.
After the teens started to instead walk away, ranger Mayo ran after Chris, pepper-sprayed him, and then repeatedly pepper-sprayed Jessica while ranger Gregorio held her on the ground.
Can rangers make traffic stops off parkland?
Much of the West Marin was outraged, and during an Aug. 25 community meeting on the rangers’ pepper-spraying, members of the public repeatedly asked whether rangers should be making traffic stops while off park property?
"They’re not prevented from doing that," Sheriff Doyle said this week, but "the whole purpose" of his deputizing Park Service rangers "is for them to be able to enforce state law while performing their daily functions as federal park rangers.
"That’s the primary purpose of the local sheriff bestowing a special deputy status on [outside] law enforcement. We do the same for US Park Police."
An internal investigation by the Park Service has "exonerated the rangers of doing anything that might jeopardize their employment. The investigator’s report, however, said he was unable to determine whether Mayo held Jessica’s eyelids apart so he could spray her directly on her eyeballs, as she has said.
The Park Service originally had promised to make the report public, but after "consultation" with its lawyers in the Solicitors’ Office, it decided not to.