Kern County Sheriff's Department

Kern County Sheriff's Office
Abbreviation	KCSO
Patch of the Kern County Sheriff's Office
Badge of the Kern County Sheriff
Agency overview
Formed	1866
Employees	1,239
Annual budget	$16.9 million (2011)
Legal personality	Governmental: Government agency
Jurisdictional structure
Operations jurisdiction*	County of Kern in the state of California, USA
Map of Kern County Sheriff's Office's jurisdiction.
Size	8,161 miles (13,134 km)
Population	839,631 (2010)
Legal jurisdiction	As per operations jurisdiction.
General nature	Law enforcement Civilian agency
Operational structure
Headquarters	1350 Norris Road Bakersfield, California
Deputies	572 (Deputy Sheriff) 336 (Detention Deputy)
Support Staffs	331
Agency executive	Sheriff, Donny Youngblood
Units	6 Air Support Bomb Squad Detention Detective Metro Patrol Special Enforcement S.W.A.T.
Regions	4 1 - North 2 - East 3 - South 4 - West
Facilities
Substations	15 Boron Buttonwillow Delano Frazier Park Glennville Kern Valley Lamont Mojave Ridgecrest Rosamond Rosedale Taft Tehachapi Walker Basin Wasco
Airbases	1 Meadows Field
Detentions	4 Central Receiving Facility Lardo Detention Facility Mojave Jail Ridgecrest Jail
Website
kernsheriff.com
Footnotes
* Divisional agency: Division of the country, over which the agency has usual operational jurisdiction.

The Kern County Sheriff's Office is the agency responsible for law enforcement within the County of Kern, California, in the United States. The agency provides: law enforcement within the county, maintain the jails used by both the county and municipal cities, and provides search and rescue. The sheriff's office contains over 1,200 sworn officers and civilian employees. Its jurisdiction contains all of the unincorporated areas of Kern County, approximately 8,000 square miles. The agency headquarters is located at 1350 Norris Road in Bakersfield. There are 15 additional substations located throughout the county. The metro patrol area is divided into four regions: north, south, east, and west.^[1]

Organization

The Sheriff's Office is divided into the following units and subunits:^[1]

Office of the Undersheriff

• Financial Services
• Planning & Research
• Air Support

Administrative Services

• Civil Section
• Communications
• Coroner
• Crime Prevention
• Human Resources
• Public Administration
• Records Section
• Technology Services
• Training Section

Detention

• Central Receiving Facility
• Court Services/Transportation
• Inmate Services
• Lerdo Jail Facilities (Max/Med Security, Minimum Security, Pre-Trail Facility)
• Work Release

Field Operation

• Metro Patrol
• Substations

Investigations

• Detective Section
• Special Enforcement
• Special Operations

Volunteer Services

• Citizen Volunteers
• Explorers
• Reserves
• Search & Rescue

Station and substations

The Sheriff's Office is headquartered at 1350 Norris Road in Bakersfield. There are 15 additional substations located throughout the county. They are:^[2]

Fallen officers

Since the establishment of the Kern County Sheriff's Office, 27 officers and citizen volunteer have given their lives in service to the County of Kern.^[3]

Misconduct

In December 2010, Jose Lucero, a recovering drug addict with mental health issues, died after a confrontation with Kern County Sheriff's deputies. The family contended that the deputies beat Lucero to death. In November 2012, Lucero's family was awarded a $4.5 million judgment in a wrongful death lawsuit against the deputies, the sheriff's office, and Kern County. ^[4]

On May 9, 2013, it was reported that Bakersfield resident David Sal Silva died after having been beaten by members of the agency. The assault on Silva was video recorded by multiple witnesses, although the resultant video was seized by law enforcement on the scene. ^[5][6]

In May 2015, it was reported that the Kern Country Sheriff's Department settled two civil lawsuits in five days in misconduct cases. One settlement, reported to be in the amount of $1 million, was paid out to a survivor of a sexual assault committed by Kern County Sheriff's Deputy Gabriel Lopez. The Kern County Sheriff's office has been found to have a longstanding program of attempting cash payoffs to women who have accused deputies of sexual assault. ^[7]

See also

• List of law enforcement agencies in California

References

External links

• Kern County Sheriff's Office