Former Jefferson County sheriff and Golden police chief Russ Cook was found dead in his South Jeffco home today. He was 59.
His troubles with alcohol were well-known. They cost him the sheriff's job in 2003 after just six months on the job.
I worked around Cook for many years. He was a good man, hired in Golden at a time when the city needed some leadership stability and accountability in the department. He was as open, as accessible and as pleasant a police chief as a press person or member of the public could ever hope to see. He also offered a certain reporter his resources to find family members who hadn't been heard from following a huge earthquake in the L.A. area in 1994.
Cook's heart was in the right place. But the bottle wasn't too far away, and that's the saddest part of all.
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