Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department history

In July of 1926, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors voted to create several Sheriff's substations around the county, because suspects were often long gone by the time deputies arrived on horseback from downtown Los Angeles.

In 1967, the Board of Supervisors ordered a study into the “senseless and costly duplication and overlapping of services” between the Sheriff’s Department and the LAPD. Maybe the two departments should merge?

When the Sheriffs moved out the Signal moved in and produced the paper there until 1986, when it too needed more breathing space and moved to Creekside Road in Valencia. It was good timing for The Signal newspaper, which had suffered a fire in its production office in 1969.

In 1972, the Sheriffs moved to the brand-new County Civic Center in Valencia and gave up their lease on the old Swall home, which by this time was owned by the Chitwoods — a family that had operated a furniture store next door.

In 1974, a candidate trying to unseat the anointed sheriff, Peter Pitchess, likened it to “attacking Zeus on a mountaintop.”

When the Sheriffs moved out the Signal moved in and produced the paper there until 1986, when it too needed more breathing space and moved to Creekside Road in Valencia.

Maybe they remember that very expensive fracas from 1989, after which the county had to pay almost $24 million to people who were wrongly arrested and even beaten by deputies in riot gear who waded into the bridal shower at the home of a Samoan American family in the contract city of Cerritos.)