Ricardo Cerna

The San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner's Department (SBSD) serves San Bernardino County, California, which is geographically the largest county in the continental United States and is headquartered in San Bernardino.

SBSD provides law enforcement services to the unincorporated areas of the county and contract law enforcement services to 14 of the county's cities, including Rancho Cucamonga and Chino Hills, 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 other specialized divisions to serve the citizens of San Bernardino County.

The Sheriff-Coroner is an elected office.

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 Wesley Piercy.

Piercy 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 as the 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.

Sheriff Benjamin F. Mathews elected September 14, 1863, served from October, 1863 to October, 1865.

In September 1865 the outlaw James Henry of the Mason Henry Gang and his gang of rustlers, robbers and murderers were in the county, camped out near San Bernardino.

John Rogers, a gang member sent to town to obtain provisions in San Bernardino, was captured after drunken boasting in the saloons of "Whiskey Point" by Sheriff Mathews and persuaded to disclose the gangs hideout.

Sheriff Mathews and his posse guided by Rogers, found and surprised Henry camped along the San Jacinto River in Railroad Canyon, (then called San Jacinto Canyon), about twenty-five miles south of town.

At sunrise on September 14, 1865, the posse approached cautiously but Henry awoke and fired three shots, striking one posse member in the foot.

Henry died in a hail of gunfire, sustaining 57 wounds.

His corpse was taken back to town, photographed and his body was displayed to the public in Old West fashion.

Some of the other men holding the office of Sheriff in the early years were George T. Fulgham was Sheriff from (1865 to 1869), Newton Noble (1869–1873), J. C Curry (1873–1877), William Davies (1877–1879), John King (1879–1882), J. B. Burkhart (1882–1884), Nelson G. Gill (1884–1885), Edwin Chidsey Seymour (1888–1892), James P. Booth (1892-1894), Charles A. Rouse (1894–1895), John C. Ralphs (1902–1915), J. L. McMinn (1915–1918).

The SBSD was featured on many episodes of the hit television series COPS, with the first 4 episodes being taped in the early 1990s.

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.

In 2018, a jury awarded $33.5 million in damages to the family of Nathanael Pickett.

At that time, this was the largest settlement awarded in the case of a police shooting in US history.

Since the establishment of the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, 16 officers and 1 K9 have died in the line of duty.

The SBCSD rank structure is as follows:

The current San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner is Shannon Dicus.

Dicus replaced John McMahon on July 16, 2021.

Serving below the Sheriff is the Undersheriff.

As in most counties, the undersheriff is second-in-command of the entire Sheriff's Department.

Beneath the Undersheriff are two Assistant Sheriffs.

One Assistant Sheriff is in charge of Operations and the other is in charge of Support (administration and logistics).

SBSD is organized into Divisions.

Each division is commanded by a Deputy Chief.