The San Diego County Sheriff's Department, commonly known as the SDSO, is the primary and largest law enforcement agency in San Diego County, California, and one of the largest sheriff’s departments in the nation: with over 4,000 employees, an annual budget of over $600 million, and a service area over 4,500 square miles extending to a 60 mile international border. The department, established in 1850, has over 4,000 sworn deputies and additional civilian support personnel servicing an area of nearly 4,526 mi².
The SDSO provides general law enforcement and public safety services to all unincorporated areas of the county (traffic enforcement, accidents, and other traffic related issues are handled by the California Highway Patrol).
Nine incorporated cities within the county (Del Mar, Encinitas, Imperial Beach, Lemon Grove, Poway, San Marcos, Santee, Solana Beach, and Vista) contract with the department for municipal law enforcement and public safety services. Within these cities, traffic enforcement is also provided.
The department operates and provides detention facilities (jails), court services, and specialized regional services (such as air support, search and rescue, SWAT, etc.) to all of the county and the nine contract cities.
The Wireless Services Division is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the San Diego County-Imperial County Regional Communications System (RCS).
The current sheriff is William Gore.
Read more about San Diego County Sheriff's Department: Vehicles, Sheriffs, Deputies Killed in Line of Duty
Famous quotes containing the words san, county, sheriff and/or department:
“There they are at last, Miss Rutledge. The will-o-the-wisps with plagues of fortune. San Francisco, the latest newborn of a great republic.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)
“It would astonish if not amuse, the older citizens of your County who twelve years ago knew me a stranger, friendless, uneducated, penniless boy, working on a flat boat—at ten dollars per month to learn that I have been put down here as the candidate of pride, wealth, and aristocratic family distinction.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“The man’s an M.D., like you. He’s entitled to his opinion. Or do you want me to charge him with confusing a country doctor?”
—Robert M. Fresco. Jack Arnold. Sheriff Jack Andrews (Nestor Paiva)
“... the Department of Justice is committed to asking one central question of everything we do: What is the right thing to do? Now that can produce debate, and I want it to be spirited debate. I want the lawyers of America to be able to call me and tell me: Janet, have you lost your mind?”
—Janet Wood Reno (b. 1938)