Ex-police captain, Rotary president Dave Hutton was a pillar of community

Former Tiburon police Capt. David Hutton, who spent more than three decades on the force and was active in community organizations including the local Rotary club and Tiburon Peninsula Little League, died of cancer Sept. 25 at Petaluma Valley Hospital. He was 66.

Hutton was hired by the department as an officer in 1981. He was promoted to corporal seven years later, then to sergeant in 1990, lieutenant in 2001 and finally to captain in 2005, serving as the interim police chief from 2006 to 2007.

When he retired in 2014, then-Chief Michael Cronin called Hutton his right-hand man.

Hutton was embedded in the community as more than a police officer, though, coaching Little League for 10 years and serving as a member of the Rotary Club of Tiburon-Belvedere for seven years, starting in 2007, including serving as president from 2013 to 2014. For the past 10 years, the club has annually awarded the Capt. Dave Hutton Service Above Self Award to a graduating eighth grader at Del Mar Middle School for outstanding community service.

“Dave was one of my mainstays in terms of building the department,” said Peter Herley, who served as police chief in Tiburon from 1987 to 2001. “He knew the community, and our motto was, we want the police to be part of, and not apart from, the community. Dave was really the epitome of that saying.”

Former Tiburon police colleague Tom Aiello called Hutton “a wonderful human being.”

“Everybody that knew him liked him,” he said.

Hutton was born June 8, 1958, in El Cerrito to Roy Hutton and Elizabeth “Betty” Hutton. He attended Salesian High School in Richmond and graduated from Diablo Valley College with an associate’s degree in the administration of justice and then from the police academy in Pittsburg in December 1978 at age 20.

He joined the Tiburon department after a five-year stint with the Pacifica and El Cerrito police departments, where he was a juvenile officer, field-training officer and on the crime-prevention unit.

In a 2014 Ark article, Hutton said he’d been sent to Tiburon on a training assignment for his former department and fell in love with the small town.

“I knew Tiburon was a place I’d fit in well,” he said. “It was just my style of policing: community oriented.”

It was at the Tiburon department that Hutton met fiancée Cindy Rodriguez, who was administrative assistant to the police chief for 42 years before retiring in 2015.

The two were both divorced with children; Hutton had one child, Jacklyn Hutton, with his ex-wife, Diane, and another daughter, Bryce Trapani, from a previous relationship, while Rodriguez had son Scott.

Rodriguez said she and Hutton were friends for years before they started dating and eventually built a house in Petaluma; they had been together 29 years at the time of Hutton’s death.

“Everybody loved working with him,” Rodriguez said, calling Hutton “kind” and “a fantastic police officer.”

Herley said Hutton was instrumental in starting the Tiburon department’s You Are Not Alone program, in which seniors sign up to receive daily check-in calls from police officers.

“By example, his attitude from the day I got there was we in the Police Department are part of the community fabric,” Herley said. “More than anything, he was dependable and could be counted on to be an example of professionalism not only for the community but for the other officers.”

Herley said Hutton was always upbeat and positive.

“I can’t remember ever seeing Dave on a down day,” he said. “(He was) very bright, very energetic, enthusiastic. He ensured that anybody that he supervised had the same attitude.”

Laurie Nilsen, the department’s administrative services and emergency-services coordinator, said not only was Hutton one of her first bosses at the department, but, as a kid, he was one of her first encounters with law enforcement.

Nilsen, who grew up in Tiburon, said when she was 12 years old, she and her friends threw dirt over the fence into a yard of a neighbor she did not like.

She said Hutton showed up at her door, was very firm and talked to her about right and wrong. Nilsen then joined the Tiburon Police Department at age 14 as part of its former Police Explorer program for young people considering careers in law enforcement, and Hutton was her adviser. She recalled she and Hutton laughed about their initial encounter when he became her boss after she was officially hired by the department at age 18.

“He was always a mentor and teacher,” Nilsen said, noting Hutton taught her some of the most important lessons about law enforcement, including the spirit of the law, helping people and serving the community.

“He had the biggest, biggest heart,” she said.

Hutton had some health struggles during his time with the department. In 2002, he was diagnosed with cancer of the neck, which he battled until doctors cleared him five years later. Then, in 2012, he was diagnosed with Ludwig’s angina, a potentially life-threatening infection on the floor of the mouth that makes those who are infected feel like they’re being strangled, which he said may have been caused by previous radiation treatments. The infection was cured weeks later after surgery, but his nerves were severed, which caused him to have occasional slurred speech along with difficulty eating.

He took two months of sick leave to recuperate from the latter, and upon his return noted that he had missed the work but had “missed the people more.”

His love for the Tiburon community was on display in some of his civic efforts, including his time with the Rotary Club.

Former club President Charlie Oewel said he and Hutton organized a program that ran for 15 years providing dictionaries to all third graders at Bel Aire  Elementary School and St. Hilary School.

Nilsen said during his school visits to pass out dictionaries, Hutton would not only show students how to use the dictionary but also taught them about some of the club’s values, including the notion of service above self.

Oewel also said the two collaborated on a sister-school program between fifth graders at Bel Aire Elementary and students at a school in Liberia. Each year from 2009 to 2019, the students at Bel Aire school would raise funds for a project at their sister school, such as drilling a well, providing a library or acquiring a school bus.

Hutton was equally as passionate about his coaching duties with the Tiburon Peninsula Little League, those who knew him said. He coached the Padres, one of the four majors division teams on the peninsula at the time, for 10 years with two of his colleagues at the Tiburon Police Department, including Aiello.

“He was very intense and enjoyed the experience of coaching,” Aiello said.

Hutton was a passionate sports fan outside of work, cheering on the then-Oakland Raiders and Athletics, family members wrote in an obituary.

“Thankfully, the Raiders and A’s won their respective games the week of David’s passing, which we know would have made him smile and send excited emoji-filled text messages to family and friends,” they said.

Jacklyn Hutton said she and her father watched a lot of sports as she was growing up; he took her to her first Raiders game, she said, and she’s still a die-hard fan of the team, which now plays in Las Vegas.

She said Hutton would have all three TVs on in different rooms of the house playing a different game, and he’d walk around the house as soon as one went to commercials.

If he wasn’t watching sports, she said, he was out on the golf range.

Nilsen noted that Hutton played fantasy football with her and several other former members of the Police Department. They have declared him the honorary winner of the current season, she said, and have named the trophy after him.

Jacklyn Hutton noted her father’s love for his work and the peninsula community shone through.

“He was so dedicated to the town of Tiburon,” she said.

Hutton is survived by his partner, Cindy Rodriguez; daughters Jacklyn Hutton and Bryce Trapani; stepson Scott Rodriguez; and step-grandson Noah Rodriguez.

Donations in his memory may be made to the Bay Area Law Enforcement Assistance Fund. A date for a celebration of life has not yet been set by the family.

Reach Naomi Friedland at 415-944-4627. DONATE to support local journalism, or SUBSCRIBE NOW for home delivery and access to the digital replica.

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