Beach Beat : Surfing Sergeant Keeps the Peace at the Seashore

After Tom Bussey glides and weaves on the glassy water by the Oceanside Pier, as he has done for 28 years, he pulls up his long surfboard and trudges to the office for a radical change of gear.

With his graying hair and mustache, the tanned Bussey looks like another aging surfer clinging to an ever more distant youth of endlessly crashing waives, gleaming Corvettes and orange sunsets.

Then he buckles on his stainless steel .357 magnum.

And he goes back down to the beach to dispense mellow surfer-style law and order on the deceptively serene sands of Oceanside.

It is usually a law-enforcement nirvana as Oceanside Police Sgt. Bussey, 42, threads his black-and-white Jeep through an obstacle course of sub-skimpy bikinis, his dash radio popping out tunes amid the terse traffic of police calls.

He tries to talk like a cop, but words like “gnarly” and “dude” involuntarily escape from some undercover soul. He catches himself and says sheepishly, “I probably talk more surfer talk than I did when I was a kid.”

It’s no wonder.

Bussey exchanges a surfer handshake with Frank, a youth with long blond hair who asks the cop, “Hey, did you get out this morning? It was insane.”

A younger kid, approaching Bussey about accompanying him during an early surf, comes along and inquires, “You goin’ out in the morning?”

“Yeah, about 7 a.m.,” replies Bussey.

“Good,” said the boy. “Then I won’t have to miss school.”

For Bussey, peace, justice and goodwill involve surfing with the local youths, pinning junior police badges on kids in an impromptu swearing-in ceremony, and giving a few bucks from his own pocket to a hungry homeless person.

“There’s nothing bad you can say about the guy,” said George Tasulis, who owns the bait shop on the long, majestic pier. “Everybody on the beach knows him by his first name.”

As police work goes, beach duty sure beats kicking in crack-house doors. And the standard uniform of tennis shoes, shorts and a golf shirt brings Bussey razzing from other cops and results in some confusion on the part of the public.

“Some of the people you’re dealing with, you have to tell them you’re a policeman, it just doesn’t click,” Bussey said.

Most of his encounters are mild, like when he nudged the Jeep over to two women sunning on a blanket and said, “Hi! You have a real problem here you’re hiding under your blanket.”

A woman surrendered a can of Lite beer and offered the legal defense: “We’re from Salt Lake City.”

Bussey advised: “Alcohol’s a no-no. Enjoy your stay.” End confrontation.

Bud Poppe, who works on the pier, said “he gives everybody a chance. A lot of cops you can’t talk to. Tom you can talk to.”

Still, there’s a peculiar danger faced by Bussey and the five other officers he supervises on the so-called “Beach Team.” There’s always the risk they’ll get blissed out on the sunshine and breeze and loose their edge.

“It’s real easy to get lax here,” he said. “You have to continually tell yourself, ‘I’m going home tonight.’ ”

There are stark reminders that patrolling Oceanside’s 4 miles of beach means more than stopping booze, boom boxes and illegal surfing too near the pier.

A week ago, Bussey heard a radio report about a man with a sawed-off shotgun and a handgun on Pacific Street just above the Strand. He swung his Jeep toward the suspect’s pickup truck, trying to come up behind. But the truck did a U-turn and suddenly faced Bussey.

“I was exactly where I didn’t want to be,” he said. With no real choice, Bussey emerged with revolver in hand and ordered the suspect to surrender. He did. Other officers converged and found the shotgun and a Derringer.

“It’s scary as hell. None of it’s cool,” Bussey said.

Over the last dozen years, he has received 11 official department commendations and 37 letters of commendation from citizens, and was Officer of the Year for 1981.

Police Chief Lee Drummond said, “He doesn’t only perform eight hours a day, he gives the community at least 24 hours a day.”

“I personally issued a number of official commendations for Tom,” he said.

It’s a long way from the insouciant days when Oceanside-born Bussey would go surfing with the long board four hours, take a nap, then rack up another four hours. The waves became a passion in his teens when he learned the salt water helped his eczema.

He and a buddy used a board “10 feet something” and about 75 pounds of redwood and balsa. “Boy, that thing hit you and it hurt,” he said.

In 1973, about the time he was ripping around town in a bronze Corvette, he married a woman who years earlier had refused to date him in high school. On the cosmic scale, he probably got even by taking Susan with him during a miserably cold two-year stint as a cop in Wrangell, Alaska.

“Like an idiot, I went,” he said. “I had never even been out of town.”

They returned to Oceanside, and he joined the Police Department, where he had been a reserve officer before the Alaska experience. Over the years, Bussey has worked patrol, ridden a motorcycle, been the department’s spokesman and, two years ago, was picked to head the Beach Team.

Backed by civilian volunteers in the summer, the team has virtually become the guardian of Oceanside’s new image. After a decade of blight and rampant crime, the beach has been cleaned up, and city officials want it to stay that way. About 4,000 tourists a month visit Oceanside.

Bussey keeps an eye on the little violations that ruin the atmosphere. Drinking leads to fights, so he and his team are especially vigilant. But it doesn’t stop there. With brain-bruising boom boxes, “we cut those guys no slack.”

And with homeless people, Bussey keeps them passing through, but he’s often a soft touch.

“I’ve been known to give ‘em a buck or two depending on who they are . . . a guy who’s down on his luck and hasn’t had a meal,” said Bussey, adding, “I’d rather go up and buy a guy a burger.”

He believes a light touch works best at the beach.

“Cops who are gung-ho and want to make lots of arrests have to temper that here,” he said. Still, the beach paradise often teeters on trouble, especially during the wild summers, and Bussey said any policeman will run up arrests on that beat.

Beside career compensations, the beach also offers a male cop aesthetic benefits.

Passing a woman in a bikini that’s little bigger than a slingshot, Bussey said, “You never get used to those things. Those suits they come out with, I’m not sure they’re wearing a suit or not.”

He said his wife, Susan, with whom he’s had two children, takes this occupational hazard “in stride.”

After all, Bussey has other feasts for his eyes. Right in the middle of some shop talk, he suddenly gazes out to his surf Camelot and rhapsodizes, “Oh, look at the swell out there, Ooo-hoo.”

He’s made countless friends on his beat, but Tasulis, the bait shop owner, pointed out, “This guy Tom’s 150% good cop. When it comes time for being a tough cop, he’s no pushover.

“I’ve heard him a couple times saying ‘You’re this close to going to jail.’ ”

What equally impresses Tasulis is Bussey’s other method of doing business.

“I’ve seen him right by my bait shop pick up kids and ask them why they’re not in school. He’ll make a deal with them. They promise not to ditch school again, and he won’t do nothin’. Then they know Tom Bussey, and he’s their friend,” Tasulis said.

Sooner or later, Bussey figures, he’ll have to leave the tiny police substation at the beach and head downtown for another assignment. When that day comes, he will be a little sad.

“I could never get enough of the beach,” he said.