San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department

San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner's Department
Common name	San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department
Abbreviation	SBCSD
Patch of the San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner's Department
Flag of San Bernardino County, California
Motto	Dedicated to Your Safety
Agency overview
Formed	1853
Employees	3,700
Annual budget	$550 million
Legal personality	Governmental: Government agency
Jurisdictional structure
Operations jurisdiction*	County of San Bernardino in the state of California, United States
Size	20,186 sq mi (52,280 km2).
Legal jurisdiction	San Bernardino County, California
General nature	Law enforcement Local civilian agency
Operational structure
Headquarters	San Bernardino, California
Sworn members	2,000
Unsworn members	1,200
Sheriff responsible	John McMahon
Facilities
Stations	16
Website
http://cms.sbcounty.gov/sheriff/
Footnotes
* Divisional agency: Division of the country, over which the agency has usual operational jurisdiction.

The San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner's Department (SBSD) serves San Bernardino County, California, which is geographically the largest county in the United States (excluding Alaska's boroughs). SBSD provides law enforcement services to the unincorporated areas of the county and contract law enforcement services to 14 of the county's cities, serving a total of 1,029,466 of the county's 2 million residents. The department also operates the county jail system, provides marshal services for the county superior courts, and has numerous other specialized divisions to serve the citizens of San Bernardino County.

The Sheriff-Coroner is an elected office. However, in 2012 when then-Sheriff Rod Hoops announced his retirement, the Board of Supervisors appointed Assistant Sheriff John McMahon to the position. The Board made the appointment after determining that a special election for sheriff would be cost prohibitive ($3.5 million). McMahon was re-elected in 2014

When San Bernardino County was established in 1853, its first Sheriff was a Mormon, Robert Clift, who served until 1857. On January 12, 1856, a volunteer militia unit known as the San Bernardino Rangers was organized under the command of Captain Andrew Lytle to aid the Sheriff in suppressing raids by Indians and the gangs of outlaws like the Flores Daniel Gang that plagued the County. Sheriff James S. Raser was elected in September 1857 but left in the Mormon exodus for Utah soon after and Joseph Bridger was appointed by the Supervisors to the office until elections were held again in September 1858. The winner in that election was James W. Mitchell, however on February 8, 1859, the Supervisors ordered that:

Subsequently, at a special meeting of the Supervisors on February 26, 1859, Valentine J. Herring was named to be sheriff of San Bernardino County until the next election in September 1859. V. J. Herring was still Sheriff during the Ainsworth Gentry Affair a couple of weeks after he lost the election to Charles W. Piercey. Piercey held the office from October 1859, until he resigned in October 1860 to run for the State Assembly and William Tarleton was appointed to take his place. In November 1860, Anson Van Leuvan who had come second to Piercey in the previous election was elected and served the as Sheriff from 1860 to 1862. He had difficulties enforcing the law in Belleville and the other boom towns of the Holcomb Valley gold rush and with the turbulence caused in the County by the secession crisis and the beginning of the American Civil War. Eli M. Smith elected in the fall of 1861, was known for his pursuit of a gang of horse thieves who had been operating in the county for several months stealing horses made precious by the wartime need for horseflesh. On one occasion Sheriff Smith rode into an outlaw camp, recovering a herd of stolen horses and arresting three thieves. By the end of his term in office he had convicted 18 men of horse theft and sent them to prison.