Behind the Badge

SLO County Sheriff’s Office

by Ian Parkinson, SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY SHERIFF

Before I begin this column, I want to first wish everyone a very happy, safe, and prosperous 2022!

That’s how I began my column last year. That’s my usual greeting for the new year. But I have to qualify that statement by saying 2021 has been anything but usual. That’s because we are still dealing with the challenges of the pandemic. I think we were all hoping once we hit 2021, all of the problems and issues with COVID would be over. However, it has mutated, and now several different variants have spread around the world. That’s made the challenge of dealing with this pandemic even more difficult. We’ve all been affected in some way or another. If not physically, then certainly emotionally or maybe financially. But it is my firm belief that there will be a better tomorrow. And with that note of optimism, I present to you my fourth annual State of the Sheriff’s Office.

There probably was no bigger story this past year than we made an arrest in the almost 25-year-old case of missing Cal Poly student Kristin Smart. I would like to talk to you more about this; however, I am still bound by the court’s gag order in the case. All I can say at this point is that this case is now proceeding to trial. The trial is expected to start in April.

Another homicide case, no less important than the Smart case but not nearly as well-publicized, was solved last year. A suspect was arrested for the 2019 murder of Larry Bross in Oceano. The 90-year-old Bross was found murdered in his home on January 24, 2019. The suspect, David Krause of Grover Beach, was arrested on April 8, 2021. That homicide was one of six the Sheriff’s Office investigated in 2019. As I mentioned at the time, we typically don’t have six homicides in one year. But 2019 was a very unusual year. With the arrest of Krause, all six of the homicides investigated by the Sheriff’s Office in 2019 have been solved.

But it’s not just the big cases that make the headlines. It’s sometimes stories like neighbors in North County reporting a person who dumped a load of trash at the entrance to the Los Padres National Forest. The suspect was caught and made to clean up his mess. Or the story about how $10,000 in rare train parts were stolen from Santa Margarita Ranch. But because of the great work of our Deputies, the parts were recovered before they were recycled, and the suspect was arrested. And one more story, one of my favorites of the year, when two of my Deputies, Nick Dreyfus and Cliff Pacas, who were involved in a shootout in 2020 with a gunman in Paso Robles, were honored for their heroism by the County Board of Supervisors.

I’m extremely grateful to the men and women of the Sheriff’s Office who, day in and day out, provide safety and security to all who live in San Luis Obispo County. And I am thankful to you, the community, for making the place we call home a better place to live.

So, here’s to a new year. Be good. And be good to one another.. 