History

In 2026, the Redwood City Police Department undertook a revitalization of its website and, in doing so, set out to expand on the department's history for the community it serves. The Redwood City Police Historical Society, founded by Captain John Spicer to preserve and promote that history, had gone largely inactive following his retirement. Recognizing the importance of preserving its past, the department has renewed that effort, drawing on original historical records, legislative acts, court decisions, and period newspaper accounts to tell a fuller story of the men and women who have served Redwood City since its earliest days. The sources drawn upon for this history are provided below for anyone interested in exploring them further.

This history remains a work in progress. Written records from the department's earlier decades are incomplete, and several stretches of time, along with the names of those who served during them, have yet to be documented. The department welcomes help in filling these gaps: anyone with photographs, documents, family records, or other information relating to the history of Redwood City's police force is encouraged to contact us, so that this history can continue to grow more complete over time.

March 27, 1868

Redwood City was formally incorporated as a town on March 27, 1868, when the California Legislature passed an act establishing its official boundaries within San Mateo County and creating its first local government. That government took the form of an elected Board of Trustees, along with a Town Marshal, Assessor, and Treasurer; the Marshal's office marking the town's earliest organized law enforcement presence. The founding legislation gave these officials the authority to govern day-to-day town affairs: passing local ordinances, maintaining streets and public infrastructure, and raising modest revenue through property and other local taxes to fund basic municipal services.

In 1874, the Legislature amended and expanded this original charter, adding a Police Justice alongside the Board of Trustees, Marshal, Assessor, and Treasurer, and formally combining the roles of Marshal and Tax Collector. The Marshal became responsible for collecting town taxes in addition to his law enforcement duties, holding the same authority as state and county tax collectors. This dual structure, one officer serving as both the town's chief peace officer and its principal revenue collector, remained in place for decades, defining the office through Redwood City's early growth from a small incorporated town into a growing California city.

Town Marshals

Under the 1868 charter, the Town Marshal was both the town's police officer and its tax collector, a combined role typical of small California towns of the period. The Marshal enforced town ordinances and made arrests, and served as Tax Collector, for which they were paid a salary capped at fifty dollars a year. An 1874 amendment to the charter expanded and formalized the position, naming the Marshal "Chief of the police department" with explicit authority to preserve order, arrest violators, and execute warrants, while keeping them as Tax Collector and raising their salary to $200 per year.

J.C. Edgar (1867–1871)

J.C. Edgar was elected Redwood City's first Town Marshal at the 1867 incorporation election, and was re-elected to the office in May 1868 under the town's new special charter. Born near Belfast, Ireland, Edgar had settled permanently in Redwood City in January 1858. He held the marshal's office until 1871. 

Henry Grimmenstein (1876–1882)

Henry Grimmenstein held the marshal's office by December 1876 and continued through at least April 1882. His tenure was contentious: in early 1882, the Board of Trustees moved toward removing him from office, and Grimmenstein responded by posting a new $1,000 bond and declaring his candidacy for re-election, saying he wanted vindication "by popular vote." The dispute over his handling of town funds outlived his time in office. In 1886, the town sued Grimmenstein and the sureties on his official bond to recover tax money he had collected but failed to turn over to the town treasury, and the case reached the California Supreme Court twice. In both rulings (Town of Redwood City v. Grimmenstein, 68 Cal. 512, decided January 30, 1886), the court held that the marshal's bond covered his tax-collection duties as well as his police duties, and that his $200 annual salary was full payment for both, making Grimmenstein and his sureties liable for the shortfall.

John Christ (1885–1900, intermittent)

John Christ, a German immigrant who had come to Redwood City in 1868 and worked for a time as a wood, coal, and charcoal dealer, was elected Town Marshal and Tax Collector in May 1885. Trustees' minutes and newspaper items from 1886, 1888, and 1889 show him presenting delinquent tax lists, making arrests, and reporting to the Board. He shared the office with P.B. Jamieson through the following decade, and returned to it by 1897; he is confirmed as Marshal by newspaper accounts through 1897 and 1899, including his arrest of two boys for a rig theft in January 1897, his enforcement of the town's 11 PM saloon-closing ordinance in July 1900, and his presentation of a delinquent tax list to the Trustees that same year. Christ died in Kenwood, in Sonoma County, in February 1933.

P.B. Jamieson (1889–1898, intermittent)

P.B. Jamieson had succeeded Christ in the marshal's office by the end of 1889 and won election as Marshal in his own right in May 1890, defeating W.E. Wagner. He served through 1891 and into 1894, when he faced a "quite lively" contested race for re-election, then made one more unsuccessful attempt to regain the post in 1898 after Christ had returned to it. Jamieson later became a well-known Redwood City plumber; his 1908 obituary in the San Jose Mercury-News described him as having been "for many years Town Marshal."

James P. Coleman (1902 - 1919)

James P. Coleman served as Redwood City's Chief of Police from 1902, newspaper-confirmed still holding the title in December 1919. His tenure ended abruptly, when he was removed from office by the Board of Trustees following a shooting incident and charges of incompetency, reversing an initial vote just five days earlier that had upheld him. By September 1920, newspapers referred to him as the city's "former chief of police." Coleman was succeeded by Clement L. "Mickey" Collins.

Police Chiefs

Clement L. "Mickey" Collins

Clement L. Collins joined the Redwood City police force as a patrolman on October 1, 1913, augmenting what was then a two-man department serving a town of roughly 1,600 residents. In his early years on the force he worked seven days a week, twelve hours a day, before being named Chief of Police on March 1, 1919, a title that by then had replaced "Marshal" as the department modernized. Over the next three decades, Collins built the department from a handful of officers into a force of 26, and modernized its equipment from having no dedicated transportation at all to a radio-equipped fleet of six automobiles and three motorcycles, connected to a statewide teletype network.

Collins was widely respected among his peers in California law enforcement. In 1922, he was the last active officer who was present at the founding of the California State Peace Officers' Association, and held membership in the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Bay Counties Peace Officers' Association, the Peninsula Police Executives' Association, and the Peninsula Police Officers' Association. Under his leadership, Redwood City went 25 years with only a single murder and no bank robberies, a record that reflected the close, orderly character of the town during his tenure. He also sent Lieutenant Stanley Wood to the FBI National Academy, preparing him to eventually succeed Collins as chief.

Collins retired on October 1, 1949, after 36 years of service, at the time the longest-serving police chief in the state of California by length of tenure. His retirement was noted nationally in the FBI's own Law Enforcement Bulletin, which profiled his career and the department's growth under his leadership.

Stanley Wood

Wood joined the department as a patrol officer in 1924, one of the small roster of men Chief Collins brought on that year, and rose through the ranks to succeed Collins as chief upon Collins's retirement. Wood led the department through the years immediately following World War II, a period of rapid growth for Redwood City as the Peninsula's population expanded, before retiring and passing the chief's office to William Faulstich.

William Faulstich

William Faulstich succeeded Stanley Wood as Chief of Police upon Wood's retirement in 1955 and led the department for nearly fourteen years. By January 1958 he was representing Redwood City at a Peninsula-wide ceremonial occasion, meeting with California Attorney General Edmund G. "Pat" Brown alongside Redwood City Mayor William Royer to plan the dedication of a memorial to Peninsula police officers killed in the line of duty. Faulstich led the department through the growth and change of the 1960s before retiring in 1969 and passing the office to John McDonald.

John McDonald

John McDonald was promoted to Chief of Police from the rank of Captain in April 1969. His career was notable for an Officer Involved Shooting (OIS) that occurred when 2 men burglarized Sequoia High School, the year that he became Chief. McDonald addressed the incident publicly at the time. He led the department until September 1973, when he was succeeded by George Bold.

 George Bold

George Bold became Chief of Police in September 1973 and led the department for nearly a decade. On May 8, 1981, Sergeant George L. Garrett Jr., 38, head of the department's narcotics detail, was shot and killed responding to an attempted armed robbery at the downtown Bank of America branch. The suspect, a federal parolee wanted in connection with other Bay Area bank robberies, was killed by return fire from another officer; a second officer was wounded in the exchange. Sergeant Garrett is memorialized by the California Peace Officers' Memorial Foundation. Bold led the department through the remainder of his tenure before being succeeded by Anthony Guardino in 1982.

Anthony Guardino

Anthony Guardino led the Redwood City Police Department for twelve years, from 1982 to 1994, one of the longer tenures in the department's history, bridging the department from Chief Bold's era into the modern era Carlos Bolanos would inherit in 1994.

Carlos Bolanos

Carlos Bolanos was appointed chief in 1994 at age 34, arriving with experience as a Captain at the Salinas Police Department and a Lieutenant at the Palo Alto Police Department. He left Redwood City in 2007 to become Undersheriff of San Mateo County under Sheriff Greg Munks, and was later appointed County Sheriff himself in 2016, winning election in 2018 before losing to Christina Corpus in 2022 and retiring in January 2023.

Lou Cobarruviaz

Lou Cobarruviaz was hired as Redwood City's Chief of Police in 2007, succeeding Bolanos. He served for roughly four years before resigning in early 2011, with his departure effective February 16 of that year. His resignation came while he was on an extended vacation that had begun the previous December; he cited personal reasons and did not return to the department before stepping down.

J. R. Gamez

J. R. Gamez was appointed Chief of Police in 2011, bringing more than 31 years of law enforcement experience, including prior service with the San Jose Police Department. During his six years leading the department, Gamez emphasized modern technology and community-focused policing, overseeing reductions in both property and violent crime and integrating tools such as social media and video chat into department operations, work recognized when he was named one of Computerworld's Premier 100 IT Leaders in America. Under his leadership the department received numerous international, national, and state awards for its technology and community engagement initiatives. Gamez was known for prioritizing personal relationships with residents, saying he wanted community members to know officers by their first names, and he was active in the community through the Redwood City Rotary Club, the Chamber of Commerce, and organizations including the Sequoia Awards board. He announced his retirement in September 2017.

Dan Mulholland

Dan Mulholland, a Redwood City native, joined the department as a Community Service Officer in 1985 and was hired as a police officer in 1987, rising through roles including patrol sergeant, SWAT commander, and captain of the Administrative Services Division before his appointment as Chief of Police effective February 20, 2018, replacing Interim Chief Gary Kirby. His tenure included steering the department through the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 protests following the killing of George Floyd, during which he emphasized the department's commitment to serving Redwood City's diverse community. Mulholland established the city's first Police Advisory Committee, made up of diverse community members, which began meeting in June 2021. He also prioritized officer mental health, reintegrating the department's Peer Support Team, introducing an anonymous wellness app for personnel, reintroducing police chaplains, and launching the Community Wellness and Crisis Response Team, a collaboration with several other Bay Area departments to embed mental health clinicians in crisis response. Mulholland earned his POST Executive Certification in 2021 and retired in May 2023 after nearly 38 years with the department.

History of the Redwood City Police Department

Founding and the Marshal's Era

When Redwood City incorporated in 1868, its entire law enforcement presence was a single elected Town Marshal, doubling as tax collector, serving a settlement of a few hundred people clustered around the county courthouse and the timber and produce wharves on Redwood Creek. There was no station house and no jail of its own in the earliest years; San Mateo County's jail, built in Redwood City when the county seat was established there in 1857, served the town's own prisoners as well as the county's, and was long remembered locally as "a neat little stone jail... known far and wide as among the most" secure of its kind on the Peninsula. Policing in this period meant one officer by day and a separate night watchman after dark, walking a business district that ran only a few blocks along Main Street and Broadway.

Growth, Prohibition, and Motorization

Redwood City's population grew slowly through the turn of the century, reaching only around 1,600 residents by the early 1910s, still small enough that the entire police force numbered two men. That began to change quickly after 1920. National Prohibition turned local policing toward a new kind of crime almost overnight: still busts, liquor-law arrests, and raids on bootlegging operations became routine business for the department through the 1920s, alongside the older staples of vagrancy sweeps and property crime, as documented repeatedly in the Daily News Leader and South San Francisco Enterprise of the era. The same decade brought the department's first real modernization: officers who had walked or bicycled their beats began patrolling by automobile and motorcycle, and by the following decades the department had built out computer networks and vehicles equipped with radios; the first time Redwood City's officers could communicate instantly with other departments across California rather than relying on telephone calls and word of mouth.

War, Growth, and New Facilities

The department's home base moved and grew alongside the city through the middle of the twentieth century. A 1921 municipal building program put a new fire station at 1044 Middlefield Road, on the same site that had housed the town's police station up to that point; the police department itself later got a dedicated, purpose-built station of its own on Middlefield Road in 1957, as Redwood City's population and the demands of Peninsula suburban growth after World War II pushed the department well beyond its small-town origins. In January 1958, Redwood City took part in a broader regional effort among Peninsula police agencies to formally memorialize officers killed in the line of duty, sending representatives to meet with the California Attorney General on plans for a dedicated memorial; an early sign of the increasing coordination among Bay Area departments that would come to define modern California policing.

A Changing City in a Changing Nation

The late 1960s through the 1980s brought Redwood City's department into a national climate of rising tension between police and the communities they served, as departments across California adopted new use-of-force standards, formalized training academies, and grappled with a harder public mood shaped by the era's civil unrest. The period also brought real risk and real loss to the department itself: on May 8, 1981, the department suffered a line-of-duty death when a sergeant was killed responding to an armed robbery at a downtown bank — one of three officers Redwood City has lost in the line of duty across its history. The department moved into its current headquarters at 1301 Maple Street in 1993, consolidating operations that had outgrown the 1957 Middlefield Road station as Redwood City itself grew from a small Peninsula town into a mid-sized city.

Professionalization and Technology

The 1990s and 2000s brought a wave of professionalization common to California policing generally: community-policing philosophies, dedicated investigations and property divisions, and growing use of computer-aided dispatch and records systems in place of paper logs and radio-only coordination. Redwood City's department built out specialty assignments and a formal training division during this period, reflecting a shift from a generalist small-town force toward a structured, divisionalized department capable of supporting a growing and increasingly diverse city.

The Department Today

In recent years the department has continued to modernize its tools while emphasizing transparency with the community it serves: automated license plate readers, a digital forensics program, a NextGen 911 digital dispatch system, and the CitizenRIMS records-management platform now sit alongside publicly available transparency dashboards and a Police Advisory Committee made up of community members. The department has also expanded its approach to crisis response, embedding mental health clinicians alongside officers through the Community Wellness and Crisis Response Team, and has renewed attention to officer wellness through peer support and chaplaincy programs: extending, in a modern form, the same basic mission the department's first Town Marshal was elected to carry out in 1868: keeping Redwood City safe as the city itself keeps changing.

A Photographic Record

Over the department's history, a number of photographs have survived alongside the written record - from the earliest chief portraits recovered through this research effort to press images of Redwood City officers at work and at public occasions across the decades. A selection of these photographs, spanning the department's history from its early Town Marshals to the present day, is presented in the slideshow below.