My Experience With San Rafael – Part IV

By Richard Douglas, Captain (Retired) with editing help from Gene Pennington, Captain (Retired).

What happened next was a stroke of luck. Louis Montanos was the sheriff.

(This part is kind of extraneous but thought it was kind of funny. I first met Louie when I was working as a boat builder in Sausalito (Nunes Brothers Boat Builders). He was the chief of police in Sausalito and was very good friends with the guys who owned/operated the boat building shop. Especially, John Roacha. John was one of those of rough and tumble kind of guys. He took no gruff but gave out plenty. One day, we had two guys living in their boat, in our harbor, getting drunk, who started causing everybody else in the harbor a bad time. John called the police and, as it turned out, all the cops (probably only one on duty) were busy. So Louie himself answered the call. By the time he got there, the two guys had gone back down into the cabin of their boat. Louie went up to the cabin door and asked the guys to come out. They refused. Louie kept asking them to come but they kept refusing. When John saw what was going on, he climbed on board and went down into the cabin. He grabbed one guy and pushed him through the door and then told the second that if he didn't get his ass outside, he would kick him outside. The other guy meekly went along. Both guys were then taken into custody for drunk in public and John had to go along with Louie to protect him from these big bad men.

Back to the story. Louis Montanos had an Undersheriff who I think accepted the job as Chief of Police in Ross. Whatever the reason, that meant that the Under Sheriff's job was open. Louie's term of office was about to expire soon and he would have to run for reelection, for another 4 years. Larry Kelly, being a young and ambitious fellow, contacted Louie and, as the story goes, said, "I'll give you $20,000 if you appoint me as your undersheriff. Then, after you win the election (Louie had won the last 5 elections in a row by landslides) you serve for two years, retire and appoint me as your successor Sheriff. Louie thought that was a good deal so he accepted. Whoopee. SRPD finally got rid of Larry Kelly.

Well, for the first time in many years, Louie finally had some competition running for Sheriff. A Captain from San Anselmo PD thought he had a chance. According to some of the wags around town, Louie was so sure of himself, he didn't really campaign that hard. As it turned out, the Captain from San Anselmo PD, Al Howenstein, was elected and Larry Kelly went back to Campbell to get a job with the sheriff down there.

So Bill Bielser and the City Council had to select another Chief. Again, someone from the outside. This time they selected a Captain from Stanford College Police (note:  I think Frank Benaderet came directly from a Pinole PD). His name was Frank Benaderet. He too was a nice enough guy. Probably much more fair minded than Larry. It was about 1976-77 when he took over. He was not a Bielser man as was Kelly. In fact, far from it. Right from the outset, there seemed to be a lot of friction between them. But that story is for Frank to tell. All I will tell you, at this point, is that Bielser forced Frank to retire (disability no less) along with assistance from the Independent Journal and the City Council. I will also tell you he sued them all but I don't know what the outcome was. He will have to tell you.

Under Frank as Chief, I had an easier time. I was promoted to Lt. in 1978 and received the title of Shift Administrator. I was no longer the negotiator for the Police Officer's Assn. Consequently, my relationship with Bielser was not as turbulent. He had someone else he was picking on now. After a year or two, a Captain’s position became available. There were 5 Lieutenants vying for that position. I remember two of them but not the other two. The two I remember were Ken Homen and Jerry Doane. Bill Bielser insisted that he conduct the test himself and that Frank Benaderet was not to have anything to do with it. There were three parts to the test. The first was an interview with members of the citizens of San Rafael; next was an oral board by administrative members of other departments; last was an interview by Bielser himself, along with his newly named assistant. After each test, the numerical score ascribed to each contestant was posted on the bulletin board. I was in last position, after each test. The officer who was in first place after each test was Jerry Doane. After all tests were administered and scored, the City Manager made his announcement. Jerry Doane was to be the next Captain. One day later, Jerry resigned saying he felt he no longer could work for an organization which was so dishonest and selfish. At that point, Bielser said he was unable to make a selection from the remaining contestants and said he was going to throw the whole mess back into the hands of the City Council. The Council then scheduled appointments with the remaining lieutenants. Each of us were then interviewed by the council. When they were through, they passed the information on to the City Manager.

I was working as the graveyard Administrator (nothing but a glorified shift Sgt.) and the next morning, Bill Bielser came in about 5:00 AM. He asked what time Ken Homen came to work. (Ken was the day shift Administrator) I told him about 7:15 - 7:30 AM. He then told me that the Council had selected me as the new Captain but I was not to tell Ken. He wanted to tell Ken himself. (I thought it kind of strange that he would want to break the news to Ken himself but was unconcerned for the other two candidates).  When Ken came in I told him to go right upstairs as the City Manager had something to tell him. Ken suddenly beamed. He probably thought he was to be told he was to be promoted. When he came back down from the City Manager's office, he said he was sick and was going to go home. But, like a good trooper, he finally got over it and congratulated me.

As soon as Benaderet retired, the Council needed to appoint a new Chief. This time, however, was different. They decided to stay in house. Not really, but as close to it as you can get. There were three Captains at this point. Gerry Souza, Chuck Brobeck and me. We were all asked to compete as well as a previous Captain, Hank Ingwersen, who had left San Rafael to become Sheriff Al Howenstein's Undersheriff. The competition wasn't even close. Hank won hands down.

When Hank took over, I was assigned back to my old job as the Investigative Division's Commander/Administrator. I stayed in that capacity until I retired on 12/1/1985.

One last little foot note. When I retired, Fireman's Fund Insurance Co., then headquartered in Novato with three multi storied office buildings in San Rafael, hired me to be their Security Manager. I stayed with them for 7 years until they were bought out by Alliance Insurance Co. of Germany. Then in February of 1994, I got a call from Dave Johnson, who was the Sergeant in charge of Adult Investigations, who told me that Jack Needling needed to undergo surgery on his back and that he was their only Fraud Investigator. Dave asked me since I had worked Fraud for many years, if I could come back to work for 3 or 4 months, while Jack recuperated from his operation. He said the department did not have a trained fraud investigator and needed someone who could come in, take over the case load and hit the ground running. I answered, "Three or four months. No problem." The next thing I hear is that Jack's doctor told him, "I'm sorry. I can't let you go back into police work because if someone grabs you by the neck, you'll be paralyzed from the neck down." My 3 or 4 months stretched into three years. I finally retired, "for good" in February of 1997.

One last note about Larry Kelly. After I was retired, I needed something from Costco in Novato. After walking around the store for a couple of minutes, I saw Larry Kelly and his wife Sandy. When we came together Larry said he was sorry for what he had to do to me when he was first hired but he had his orders from Bill Bielser. He said that one of the conditions, under which he was hired, was to find a way to fire me or get me to resign without putting the city in jeopardy of being sued. He said he wanted the job, didn't know me, so it would be OK to accept the conditions. He then said that after he got to know me, saw how resilient I was, and realized that I was not going to do anything wrong, he sort of wanted to forget the conditions. He asked if I would forgive him. I told him that there was nothing to forgive. Going back to graveyard was not the worst thing that has ever happened to me and as for taking the test for captain, it was just delayed a little. So no one was hurt and I didn't hold anything against him.

I think that is the end. If I remember anything else that is newsworthy, I write an addendum.

Note:  This concludes Dick’s series of articles titled “My Experience with San Rafael”.  Thanks Dick!

Pictured above are Dick Douglas being congratulated by Retired Chief Joe Brusatori at Dick’s retirement party in 1985. 

Pictured above are Jerry Green, Dick Douglas, Phil Green, Mike O’Brien, Gary Frugoli, Larry Kelly, Woody Hoke and Ron Averiette.  Picture was taken at the San Rafael High School Gym at a charity donkey basketball game.