Майк Брэдвелл официально станет шерифом округа Колуза 8 сентября

When Mike Bradwell is asked about the most indelible moment of his 20-year career with the Colusa County Sheriff’s Office – the agency he’ll officially be in charge of on Sept. 8 – the long pause he takes ends with an anecdote that some wouldn’t expect.  And that’s significant: Bradwell has plenty of instances to pick from.  He could mention one of the rescues he performed as a young boat deputy, back when split-second decisions meant the difference between life and death around vessel collisions and swimmers drowning in East Park Reservoir.  Or Bradwell could recall being an agent with Colusa’s major crimes task force when farming scion Paul Moore planted a bomb in an agriculture pump in one of the county’s rice fields, triggering an explosion that killed crop manager Roberto Ayala in a premeditated assassination that happened in front of Ayala’s little son. Bradwell, soon promoted to commander of the task force, mobilized his team of investigators to assist lead detective David Salm in bringing Moore to justice.   Or he could discuss being a veteran commander of the same elite force when a manhunt began for Salvador Garcia-Vaca, who’d brutally murdered his 21-year-old girlfriend Karen Garcia. The victim was a spirited waitress who locals knew from Granzella’s Restaurant in Williams. After Karen’s body was found in a Woodland parking lot, Salvador fled to Mexico. Bradwell can still remember working all hours of the day and night with Agent Chris Liston of the U.S. Marshals as he gathered and relayed the intelligence that would lead to Salvador being captured in Guadalajara. But none of those intense experiences are what come to Bradwell’s mind when prodded about revelations around a cop’s existence.  For Bradwell, instead it’s a flashback to sitting in a breakroom of the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, watching in real-time through an iPad as his first son was born on the other side of the country. Of course, this was never the plan. Bradwell had applied for the FBI’s top-flight training in order to bring specialized tactics and leadership skills back to Colusa County. The graduation in 2015 was supposed to happen before his wife’s due date. But the baby had other ideas. For Bradwell, looking into that iPad clarified the weight of protective responsibility. “I mean, you have this law enforcement career where your life is dedicated to serving a community,” he observes, “but in that moment, missing the birth of my son, it really brought into focus how you have to manage things and try to have a happy medium between your life and your job.” Smiling, he adds, “A lot of people would say I still haven’t found it.” But others might say he has: When Bradwell’s not in uniform, he’s often coaching the Little League and youth basketball teams that his children play on. He’s also been helping out with Future Farmers of America as his kids get interested in livestock. Business owners and local volunteers around the city of Colusa talk about Bradwell with a certain confidence that he’s part of the fabric of things. To some extent, that’s a reflection of Bradwell’s law enforcement sensibilities, too, especially his belief in community-oriented policing.  “We show what we do by interacting with locals and being out there with people,” Bradwell notes. “Our deputies are able to get out and walk around, and we ask them to do foot patrols and talk to everyone.”   Help from residents and neighborhoods matter when it comes to safeguarding a place like Colusa County, which has its own challenges for patrolling, not the least of which involve a vast amount of space between its borders. While the Sheriff’s Office is based in the city of Colusa, its deputies and detectives are responsible for locations like Stonyford, a mountain hamlet that’s nearly an hour’s drive from their headquarters. They also respond to calls at Letts Lake, another 40 minutes of drive-time past Stonyford. Emergency calls in the southern corners of their jurisdiction like Wilbur Springs are also a serious trek.   Bradwell’s team manages those hurdles by being thoughtful and proactive with deputy movements in their three patrol beats – and by having an instinct for the terrain that only comes with years of familiarity.  And so, every law enforcement command has its difficulties; but anyone who’s seen Mike Bradwell’s resume can tell he doesn’t steer away from obstacles. “I never expected to be in this position,” Bradwell says of his impending swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday, “but I don’t take the job lightly.”   Made in the Mid-Valley Bradwell grew up in Yuba County, in Linda, but attended Sutter County’s Winship Elementary School in Meridian near the Colusa border. Being raised with a love of the Mid-Valley’s outdoor life ended up being a key factor to how he arrived at the Colusa County Sheriff’s Office in the first place. Bradwell was attending the Butte College Police Academy in 2006 when Colusa’s then-chief deputy swung by to discuss recruitment with the cadets. “I had spent some time over here in Colusa when I was at Sutter High School, just fishing the river and wake-boarding; so, I had interest,” Bradwell remembers. “I learned they had off-road vehicles and boat patrols. I thought, ‘That’s a great idea.’” At that time, Bradwell was pushing through the academy alongside another cadet named Michael Bullard. Now an  Investigations Lieutenant with the Yuba City Police Department, Bullard recalls the days of working with Bradwell towards their mutual goal of getting into law enforcement. “Even back then, there were qualities about him that stood out,” Bullard reflects. “As a cadet, Mike was someone who quickly earned the respect of the people around him. He was humble, approachable, worked well with everyone, and carried himself with a quiet confidence and natural leadership ability. He wasn’t someone who needed to be the loudest person in the room to have an impact. He worked hard, treated people well, and was simply someone you wanted on your team.” In short order, Bradwell brought those attributes to his first assignment as a patrol deputy in Colusa. He was soon transferred to the department’s boat division where he was getting the kind of outdoor action he’d been hoping for when he signed up. He loved talking with fishermen and advising members of the public on how to avoid ending up in dangerous situations. Eventually, Bradwell attended a U.S. Coast Guard academy for water-born law enforcement in South Carolina and created a Colusa Sheriff’s dive team. Throughout those endeavors, he started to learn a skill that would become increasingly important to his agency – writing grant proposals.  In 2011, Bradwell was re-assigned to Colusa’s narcotics team, which evolved into its major crimes task force. He was promoted to being the permanent sergeant in charge of the group right in the middle of the bizarre and byzantine probe into Roberto Ayala’s murder.  “It was a huge responsibility,” Bradwell admits. “Especially for the age I was at the time … We were dealing with methamphetamine –  meth and marijuana grows up in the mountains. We didn’t see heroin, yet. We didn’t see fentanyl, yet. But then we did start seeing those. When fentanyl came in, that changed things, especially with the potencies. We started encountering mental health issues with people as all this was happening. We’d never seen anything like fentanyl before.” The mental health catastrophes that sometimes accompany hardcore addiction were realities that would stay in Bradwell’s mind later when he was tasked with spearheading a four-year construction project for Colusa’s new county jail. When Bradwell describes the just-finished building, he calls it a detention and treatment facility. That’s because, in addition to having 96 beds, it boasts rooms for rehabilitation programming, a nurse’s station, a dental operatory, and a state-of-the-art design that allows for maximum safety all around.    “We finished a day ahead of schedule, and we were under budget,” Bradwell says while walking through its halls. “Our old jail was built in 1963 and it just didn’t have room for any of the re-entry programs that are essential today … When we do tours for local kids, they’ll ask questions like, ‘Who goes to jail? Bad people?’ And I tell them, ‘It’s just people who make bad decisions.’ So, anything we can do to help people like that re-enter society and be productive, we want to do that. On the other hand, there are some people who are not going to make that change. So, we have to have a facility that supports our courts’ decisions for them, too.” A passing of the badges  Last April, Colusa County Sheriff Joe Garofalo informed the Board of Supervisors that he intended to retire. Garofalo is a lifelong Colusa resident who worked for the Sheriff’s Office for 30 years. He launched his first campaign to be the head of that agency in 2013 after well-known lawman Scott Marshall road off into the proverbial sunset. Garofalo’s last election coincided with a change to state ballot cycles, which caused all county sheriffs and district attorneys to have to serve a six-year term rather than a four-year term ahead of a state re-set.  “Sheriff Garofalo definitely gave us plenty of time to explore options for appointing a new Sheriff to serve out the last two years of the term,” says Colusa County CEO Joshua Pack. “He has always been great to partner with.” The supervisors explored recruitment options, though, in the end, unanimously agreed that Bradwell was the right person to lead the agency. It wasn’t a surprise in-house: By 2019, Bradwell had worked his way into the second-highest leadership position in the Sheriff’s Office. Pack says that all one has to do is review Bradwell’s extensive and versatile resume – and his numerous accomplishments – to see why the supervisors made their decision. And they weren’t just swayed by his rescue experience or time as a task force commander. Bradwell has also been the leader of Colusa’s Special Operations and Response Team, as well as the Sheriff’s Sniper Team, and represented the area’s Deputy Sheriff’s Association.    “In all my years in government, I can’t think of anyone who has been more prepared to take a job like this than Mike Bradwell,” Pack points out.  On Sept. 8 at 3:30 p.m., Bradwell will officially be sworn-in as Sheriff in Department 1 in the county’s historic courthouse at 547 Market Street in the city of Colusa.   Bradwell’s priorities coming into office include continuing the strong partnerships the Sheriff’s Office has with other law enforcement agencies near its beats, including the city of Colusa Police Department, the city of Williams Police Department and the Colusa office of the California Highway Patrol. Bradwell says he’s also focused on maintaining his department’s current levels of service while making sure to be a good steward of public dollars. In an era where state-level political forces continue to impact local jail populations, early prison releases, victim’s rights visibility and Sacramento’s general support for policing, chasing that latter objective means dealing with a certain level of instability. From where Bullard sits at a neighboring law enforcement outfit, he thinks Bradwell has the exact right mindset and temperament to deal with such X-factors.  “After the academy, we went to different agencies,” Bullard mentions. “Our careers crossed paths many times over the years … One thing I respected about him was that he never acted as though he had everything figured out. He was always willing to learn, draw from the experience of others, and leverage the resources and knowledge around him to become better at his craft, better as a leader, and ultimately better able to serve his community. Because of that, it was never surprising to see him continue taking on greater responsibilities.”  For Bradwell’s part, he says that his time at the FBI Academy,  which had a personal cost towards the end, was also rewarding because he received guidance from some of the best law enforcement leaders in the nation. Now, he’ll be bringing those lessons with him as he becomes both a boss and a Sheriff.   “It was amazing training,” he stresses. “It helped me understand that I can’t do everything myself. It’s about building your team and supporting your employees – and knowing you have to work with the people you serve.”