Spokesman For Embattled DA Kamala Harris: I'm Outta Here

We won't have Brian Buckelew to kick around anymore ... unless we're judges and juries

​After answering media queries on former crime lab tech Deborah Madden and her cohorts snorting the evidence and, ahem, some rather critical media coverage, the spokesman for embattled District Attorney Kamala Harris has had enough.

Brian Buckelew today announced he's leaving his spokesman gig in a brief e-mail that didn't offer any explanations as to what, exactly, spurred this decision. "It was a fun 10 months," he notes. Well, it certainly was interesting.

Buckelew was an assistant district attorney prior to his Public Information Officer gig and he will be once more -- and right soon. Friday is a transitional day and he'll be back in a trial unit on Monday. Our calls to the spokesman to inquire what brought about this hasty change have not yet been returned.

The erstwhile spokesman's legal knowledge, incidentally, made speaking with him more informative than conversing with your average talking-head public information officer. He returned calls and e-mails diligently, including very late or very early in the day. In short, he was a competent, hard-working, stand-up guy.

Naturally, he's out.

Update: 3:40: Buckelew, naturally, returned our call. He says he never intended to hold this position for more than a year and recent budget woes "crystallized that we don't have the ability or luxury to have a prosecutor in this position. ... I wanted to be in the courtroom. I joined this office to be a prosecutor." This move, he says, was totally his decision.

The hard times of recent weeks and months, Buckelew said, did not influence his decision. "It's been almost a year and it was a lot of work. I don't think anyone could have predicted things would go down the way they did. But that's part of the fun of the job." Like we said, it's been interesting.