The Cop Who Wasn’t
After 24 wild years, Sheriff Bob Braudis turns in the badge
by Matthew L. Moseley
Early one morning many Christmases ago, Jack Nicholson woke to a ringing doorbell at his Maroon Creek home. The actor opened the door and was repulsed and frightened by what he saw on the front step: an elk heart, dripping with blood. He called the police and prepared his kids for an immediate evacuation.
Sheriff Bob Braudis soon received the call. He shook the sleep from his eyes. No need to call in the cavalry, he thought. Only one person is capable of this kind of deviance.
He phoned Hunter S. Thompson.
“Of course I did it,” said Thompson. “The bastard slipped into my town and didn’t call me. He deserved it.”
The Nicholson family stayed put. The sheriff went back to bed.
Just another day in Bob Braudis’ Aspen.
For those who don’t know him, Braudis is an Aspen institution. For 24 years, he’s relied on his own policing philosophy—and the intuition that kept Nicholson from having a coronary—to become a hulking, silver-maned, gap-toothed, and glad-handing embodiment of everything we value in this little mountain town. Many of us, anyway.
I’ve known Braudis for many years under different circumstances, from our friendship with Thompson to our involvement in the campaign to free convicted murderer Lisl Auman. The guy I’ve gotten to know is a bundle of wonderful contradictions. Tough and tolerant. Highbrow and low. Scholar and ski bum.
Many have wondered whether a guy like Braudis—whose circle of celebrity friends gained him the reputation of a rock ’n’ roll sheriff—could have been elected anywhere else. Maybe not, but you don’t keep an elected position for more than two decades without doing something right.
Braudis moved to Aspen about 40 years ago and spent eight years as a ski bum. He fondly remembers the time he lived with...
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