Share This Article:

The FBI Wednesday announced the appointment of 24-year agency veteran Scott Brunner as special agent in charge of the bureau’s San Diego Field Office.

Support Times of San Diego's growth

with a small monthly contribution Become a supporter

Upon joining the federal law enforcement organization in 1995, Brunner was assigned to its Portland Field Office in Oregon, where he primarily investigated violent and organized crime, according to FBI public affairs. He later transferred to the Oklahoma City Field Office, focusing on public corruption. He additionally served as a pilot and SWAT team operator in both offices.

In 2003, Brunner was promoted to the Criminal Investigative Division at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., where he managed the joint FBI/Hungarian Organized Crime Task Force. Two years later, he transferred to the San Diego Field Office, where he supervised a strike force that tackled major Mexican drug traffickers.

Brunner was selected in 2009 to lead the FBI Safe Streets and Gang Unit at the agency’s headquarters. In 2011, he was promoted to assistant special agent in charge of criminal and administrative programs at the Louisville FBI Field Office in Kentucky. He later led Louisville’s national security and intelligence programs.

Between 2014 and 2016, Brunner served as legal attache in Bogota, Colombia, before being named chief of the surveillance and aviation section of the Critical Incident Response Group.

In January, an Arkansas newspaper reported Brunner was an applicant for Little Rock police chief. (The city chose a chief from Norman, Oklahoma.)

In 2018, he was promoted to deputy assistant director of CIRG, where his responsibilities included managing the FBI’s surveillance, aviation, unmanned-systems and counter-unmanned-systems programs, behavioral analysis, and command center.

Brunner, 54, earned a bachelor’s degree from Arizona State University and is on track to receive a master’s in unmanned systems from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University this summer.

The San Diego Union-Tribune said Brunner succeeds Suzanne Turner, acting special agent in charge since February when John Brown left after about a year. Brown was promoted to assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division in Washington, D.C.

— City News Service contributed to this report.

New San Diego FBI Chief is Scott Brunner, Pilot With Public Corruption Expertise was last modified: by

>> Subscribe to Times of San Diego’s free daily email newsletter! Click here

Follow Us: