An apology and check from Ranger Roger Mayo

Point Reyes Light - December 1, 2005

By Jim Kravets

The denouement of a shameful episode which began in September 2003 - involving an off duty National Park ranger, a dozen motorcyclists, a garden hose and a cup of coffee - was played out a week ago when $400 in settlement money was donated to the Stinson Beach Fire Department.

The 2003 incident and subsequent events would reverberate through the community, altering dramatically the life of the ranger and the newspaper publisher that pursued his exposé.

In the incident which occurred on Sept. 21, 2003, storied National Park Service ranger Roger Mayo turned a garden hose on a group of motorcyclists northbound on Highway 1 in front of his then Park Service home in the Olema Valley.

As it happened, Light photographer Clint Graves was following the motorcycles when they passed Mayo's house in the Olema Valley. "As we came past Five Brooks," Graves recalled at the time, "there was a gentleman with a cup of coffee in his hand spraying a hose directly across [Highway 1].

"He started [spraying] as soon as he saw us coming. As we were coming up on him, he would stop temporarily, point the hose directly at an oncoming motorcyclist, and spray him. He ended up hitting seven or eight bikes...hitting one biker, who had his visor up, straight in the face. The [Petaluma] biker turned around after clearing his face and went back to confront the person. He got off his motorcycle, and the gentleman was standing there with a cup of coffee in his hand. The biker said, 'What the fuck is the problem?'"

Mayo responded, "There is no problem. I was watering the berry bushes across the [highway]."

"The biker says, 'Bullshit! You were hosing us down.' The ranger made a gesture with his coffee," Graves said, "and the biker, who happened to be an arm wrestling champ, thought he was going to get hit with it and pushed it aside, getting coffee all over Mayo."

[The biker] "then told the ranger he knew who he was and that 'this is dangerous. You could hurt somebody.'" The warning proved prophetic. As the motorcyclist turned onto the highway to leave, "he hit the water and fell down," Graves noted.

'Immaturity' all around

The Sheriff's Department's Investigations Division decided that both ranger Mayo and the Petaluma biker (who had knocked Mayo's coffee onto him) had been "immature." As a result, neither was charged.

A complaint was filed against Mayo by Inverness attorney Chris Dolan, of the Dolan Law Firm, on behalf of two of the motorcyclists, David Neal of Tam Valley and Elliott Bender of San Francisco.

The suit was brought after Dolan, during a Point Reyes Town Hall Meeting, informed the Park Service that if they did not police their employees, then it would result in legal action. "You're on notice, and you know what that means," Dolan warned the Park Service at the Aug. 2004 meeting. "Your bad apple gets out of line again, and you get sued by someone like me." When no response came from the Park Service, a legal action was brought, on Jan. 21, 2005, in Marin County Superior Court, against Mayo for assault and battery.

Dolan this week told The Light he felt he couldn't not act: "If the state, through its police authority, is allowed to go after the unpopular, whether it be local kids or motorcyclists, then the question is raised, who will be unpopular tomorrow? Latinos? Single mothers? Anti-war protesters? If we allow the police powers to selectively enforce the laws as they see fit then they become the arresting officers as well as the judge and jury."

First suit against ranger

Mayo was sued as an individual for his actions. The motorcyclists did not sue the National Park Service. Mayo was represented by Debra Bogaards of the San Francisco law firm Pave and Bogaards.

Attorney Dolan, a motorcyclist himself, did the case pro bono. "This was personal for me," Dolan said. "I didn't feel safe out there with Mayo around, so somebody had to stand up. I wanted him to have that experience - to hire a lawyer, to deal with the stress of being in jeopardy because of your behavior - so that maybe he'll be more compassionate next time, because underlying all this is a fundamental lack of compassion. I did this so that he can better dispense justice with a sense of compassion down the road."

"I was proud to defend Roger Mayo in this lawsuit," Debra Bogaards on Tuesday told The Light. "Park Ranger Roger Mayo is a decorated park ranger who has saved a life in the line of duty. The Point Reyes Light, under its former ownership, made the notorious pepper-spray incident a cause celebré which resulted in a civil rights lawsuit. Park Ranger Mayo's caring, compassionate and hard-earned reputation was marred by the one-sided press. It was disheartening to learn of the damage done to this courageous law enforcement ranger who was doing his job to the best of his abilities and training in a difficult situation, in such a beautiful, liberal and seemingly open-minded community."

Trouble from a can

Subsequent to the garden hose event, Roger Mayo was one of two Point Reyes National Seashore rangers who took part in a July 28, 2004 incident involving the pepper-spraying of an Inverness Park girl, 17, and her brother, 18, in Point Reyes Station. The two, Jessica and Chris Miller, were bystanders at a minor law-enforcement matter and tried to find out what was going on.

Neither was charged with wrongdoing, and their Civil Rights lawsuit against rangers Roger Mayo and Angelina Gregorio, as well as National Seashore Supt. Don Neubacher and chief ranger Colin Smith, was filed in federal court

In a settlement reached last September, the US Department of the Interior agreed to pay two Inverness Park teenagers $50,000 in compensation.

By the time of the September settlement The Light would print some 25 articles about Roger Mayo and the pepper spray case, many written by publisher David Mitchell who often devoted his column, Sparsely Sage and Timely, to the topic. The articles would eventually win for The Light state and national journalism awards.

Mitchell's crusade on the pepper-spray case, called near-obsessive by his critics, would be compared to his 1979 effort against the Marshall cult Synanon which won for Mitchell and The Light the Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service.

The strain proved significant, and on Nov. 3, two months after the Park Service settled with the teenagers, and 28 years into his own tenure, Mitchell sold the Point Reyes Light, saying he was exhausted. Spearheading the Mayo matter contributed to the exhaustion. "It was tiring, frankly," Mitchell said this week. "It was tiring convincing all those people who unquestioningly believed the Park Service."

Settlement finalized last month

A settlement in the motorcyclist action was reached on April 14, 2005 but - due to the attorneys' respective trial schedules - was only finalized last month. Mayo was to pay out of his pocket, $1,000 to resolve the claim and to draft a public apology. The "statement of regret" states: "Please accept my public statement of regret for my actions and any resulting harm which occurred on Sept. 21, 2003, on State Route 1." It is not dated.

Most notable in the settlement was a stipulation that Ranger Mayo relocate outside of the Point Reyes-Inverness area.

Possibly as a result of the garden hose and pepper spray incidents, Mayo was taken off patrol duty at Point Reyes National Seashore and in March was reassigned to Sequoia National Park.

This was the last straw," Dolan said. "The National Park Service and Superintendent Neubacher couldn't ignore that lawsuits were coming against the park, and coming against Mayo."

'Animosity and emotion'

"This is best described as a lawsuit fueled by animosity and emotion," Mayo's attorney in the motorcycle complaint Debra Bogaards told The Light.

Bogaards is less convinced that justice or the best interests of the community were served by the outcome. She describes her client as an honorable and respected man, dedicated to his work and community. "Mayo is a devoted father who loves to tend to his garden while his son delights with a watering can. [He] spent his free time making improvements to his house and the garden at his own expense. Roger and his wife Jessica loved nature and the beauty afforded by Inverness and Point Reyes - they cared deeply for their community."

"Incidentally," Bogaards adds, "no apology has been forthcoming from the motorcyclists for their barrage of harsh words."

Closure

After "much thought" about a celebration at the Western, or the Station House Cafe for those involved, Plaintiffs Neal and Bender and attorney Dolan decided to donate part of their respective settlement and fees to the Stinson Beach Fire Department. "Those guys have picked enough of our members up off the road a few times," Neal this week told The Light. An East Bay plant food company CEO, Neal regularly takes part in the "Sunday Morning Ride," a weekly motorcycle tour of four to forty riders through West Marin which often involves Highway 1 and has been going on for some 50 years.

"Mr. Neal is to be credited with choosing the Stinson Beach Fire Department," Dolan said. "The motorcyclists' charity of choice, Full Circle, in Dogtown, which had helped disadvantaged boys, closed recently due to lack of funding."

"We all felt that it was important to demonstrate that motorcyclists, and myself, are not against authority of all types, only the abuse of authority," Dolan said. "It was seen fitting to donate the money to a government organization that helps the community and helps motorcyclists - to bring this full circle, to make the lesson complete, to not profit but to restore some balance to this equation in our community which was tragically upset by the actions of an abuse of power."

In an informal mid-ride ceremony on Sunday Nov. 20, the whole ignoble story hopefully came to a close as Neal handed Stinson Beach Fire Chief Kenny Stevens a check for $400.