Sheriff Bob Braudis is a Paul Bunyan of a man. At 6-foot-6, weighing over 250 pounds, with a friendly mop of Beatles-styled hair, Braudis fills every room with his larger-than life presence. The single best word to describe the 66-year-old Pitkin County sheriff is giantism—everything about him seems Lincolnesque. In Aspen, a ski town that for all its tony wealth still exudes a high-country silver-rush aura, Braudis is a pulp Western hybrid of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. As a Colorado law-enforcement officer for 33 years, he’s a white hat; yet his close association with an assortment of rogues, gonzozillians and seasonal workers places him squarely in the outlaw-culture mien. As his late friend Hunter S. Thompson used to brag, Braudis was the only US policeman he knew who could “speak Latin, downhill ski like the ghost of Jean-Claude Killy and discuss Aristotle while making pat-down arrests.”
Amazingly enough, this Rocky Mountain cop has become a folk legend with libertarians, liberals, drop-outs and conservatives for a simple reason: fair-mindedness. Too often police officers are robotically programmed to punish criminals. Coldly stuck in power-trip mode, they flash shiny badges, orchestrate speed traps and compete, in sweepstakes fashion, to write up the most traffic tickets. By predisposition, Braudis is the antithesis of this police-are-to-be-feared approach to the legal arts. “Fairness has no monikers,” Braudis says of the way he runs Pitkin County law enforcement. “And, when possible, I believe in frontier justice, plea-bargaining, taking the problem off the streets and out of the courts and solving it. Sometimes people you arrest deserve a break. You can’t put everybody in jail.”
The End of a Braudis Era
The news that Braudis is retiring from duty in January 2011 sent a wave of palpable sadness across the Roaring Fork Valley that could be felt from the Maroon Bells to the Roaring Fork River, all the way to Redstone. Everybody in Pitkin County who’s not a shithead loves Bob. First elected sheriff in 1986, his fair and humane law enforcement tactics have earned him high praise from the likes of singer John Oates, cyclist Lance Armstrong and novelist James Salter. His NIMBY-like advocacy in 1995 against allowing 737s to land in Aspen earned him the respect of corporate tycoons and environmentalists alike. Braudis—along with a core Woody Creek contingent—may have nobly saved Aspen from being Californized. “We won that battle against bringing cruiseship tourism into Aspen via the big planes,” Braudis explains. “If you love Aspen, like I do, then you had to say no! We won that fight, and it still feels pretty good.” Only a few merchants remain angry with Braudis for his grass-roots campaign against the 737s.
FROM LEFT: Hunter S. Thompson, David Meeker, Sheriff Bob Braudis and Kevin Costner at a Jazz Aspen Snowmass concert, circa late 1990s; Braudis; with daughters Stephanie (LEFT) and Heidi (RIGHT) at Buttermilk Ski Area, circa 1971.
