Harris County Sheriff's Office

The Harris County Sheriff's Office (HCSO) is a local law enforcement agency serving the over four million citizens of Harris County, Texas, United States. It is headquartered on the first and second floors in the 1200 Baker Street Jail in Downtown Houston.[2][3]

Harris County Sheriff's Office
Patch of Harris County Sheriff's Office
Patch of Harris County Sheriff's Office
Badge of Harris County Sheriff's Office
Badge of Harris County Sheriff's Office
AbbreviationHCSO
Agency overview
Formed1837 (1837)
Employees3,545
Annual budget$717 m (2020)[1]
Jurisdictional structure
Operations jurisdictionHarris County, Texas, Texas, United States
Legal jurisdictionHarris County, Texas
General nature
Operational structure
Headquarters1200 Baker St. Houston, TX 77002
Deputies2,545
Civilian employees1,000
Sheriff responsible
Agency executive
  • Mike Lee, Chief Deputy
Facilities
3 HelicoptersOH-58 Kiowa, Astar & Cirrus fixed wing
Website
Harris County Sheriff's Office Website

As of the 2010 U.S. census, the county had a population of 4.1 million, making it the most populous county in Texas and the third most populous county in the United States. Its county seat is Houston. The Harris County Sheriff's Office has approximately 3,500 employees and is the largest sheriff's office in the state of Texas and the sixth largest in the nation. The number one and two largest sheriff's offices in the nation are respectively the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in California and the Cook County Sheriff's Office in Illinois. The third, fourth, and fifth are the Broward County Sheriff's Office in Florida, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office in Florida, and the San Diego County Sheriff's Department in California.

The Harris County Sheriff's Office is the primary law enforcement agency in the 1,118 square miles (2,900 km2) of unincorporated area of Harris County, serving as the equivalent of the county police for the approximately 1,071,485 people living in the unincorporated areas of the county. In Texas, sheriffs and their deputies are fully empowered peace officers with county-wide jurisdiction and thus, may legally exercise their authority in unincorporated and incorporated areas of their county; they primarily provide law enforcement services for only the unincorporated areas of a county, while yielding to municipal police or city marshals to provide law enforcement services for the incorporated areas. Sheriffs and their deputies also have statewide warrantless arrest powers for any criminal offense (except certain traffic offenses) committed within their presence or view.[4] They also may make arrests with a warrant anywhere in the state.[5] In an emergency, sheriffs along with mayors and district judges are empowered by state law to call forth the National Guard to preserve the peace.[6]

The jurisdiction of the Harris County Sheriff's Office often overlaps with several other law enforcement agencies, among them the Texas Highway Patrol, the eight Harris County Constable Precincts, and several municipal police agencies including the city of Houston Police Department. The duties of a Texas sheriff generally include keeping the county jail, providing bailiffs for the county and district courts within his county and serving process issued by said courts, and providing general law enforcement services to residents. The current sheriff of Harris County is Ed Gonzalez, elected in 2016 and has been in office since January 1, 2017.

History
Traffic Division

John Moore was sworn in as the first sheriff of what was then called Harrisburg County (later renamed Harris County) in February 1837. Among the oldest law enforcement agencies in Texas, the department has grown from a single man on horseback to a modern agency with 3500 employees, including over 2500 sworn officers.

On May 31, 2017, John Hernandez died after being placed in a choke hold after a fight by officers Terry Thompson and Chauna Thompson, a married couple.[7] The death was ruled a homicide by the Harris County medical examiner on June 6, 2017, and both Thompsons were charged with murder.[8]

Sheriffs

Harris County sheriffs:

Name Dates
John W. Moore 1837-1841
John Fitzgerald 1841-1843
Mangus T. Rodgers 1844-1846
David Russell 1846-1850
James B. Hogan 1850-1854
Thomas M. Hogan 1854-1856
John R. Grymes 1856-1858
George W. Frazier 1858-1861
B.P. Lanham 1861-1865
John Proudfoot 1866
Irvin Capters Lord 1866
A.B. Hall 1866-1873
Sam S. Ashe 1873-1875
Cornelius M. Noble 1876-1883
John J. Fant 1884-1886
George W. Ellis 1887-1895
Albert Erichson 1896
W. M. Baugh 1897-1898
Archie Anderson 1899-1912
Marion F. Hammond 1913-1918
Thomas A. Binford 1919-1936
Norfleet Hill 1937-1942
Neal Polk 1942-1948
Clairville "Buster" Kern 1949-1972
Jack Heard 1973-1984
Johnny Klevenhagen 1985-1995
Tommy Thomas 1995-2009
Adrian Garcia 2009–2015
Ron Hickman 2015-2017
Ed Gonzalez 2017-

Fallen officers

Since the establishment of the Harris County Sheriff's Department, 45 officers have died in the line of duty.[9]

Officer Date of death Details
Carl F. Courts
November 30, 1895
Gunfire
James A. Reed
September 6, 1905
Gunfire
Arthur Taylor
May 24, 1914
Accidental gunfire
William C. Williams Jr.
April 16, 1930
Accidental gunfire
Joe Trapolino
May 23, 1936
Gunfire
Theron Eldridge (Eddie) Shofner
July 14, 1948
Gunfire
Leo Busby
September 10, 1953
Automobile accident
Donald E. Knowlton
August 22, 1960
Gunfire
Walter Howard Harvey
November 5, 1962
Automobile accident
Fred B. Peebles
September 23, 1965
Vehicular assault
Edd Williams
January 12, 1974
Gunfire
Rodney Scott Morgan
February 26, 1974
Accidental gunfire
Jimmie Howard McKay Sr.
March 22, 1974
Gunfire
James A. Wier
August 18, 1978
Vehicle pursuit
Joe Mason Westbrook
July 1, 1979
Gunfire
Albert Ochoa Garza
July 30, 1979
Gunfire
Royce Melvin Anderson
October 26, 1981
Accidental gunfire
Reginald Floyd Norwood
September 3, 1985
Vehicle pursuit
Haskell Junior McCoy
February 2, 1987
Automobile accident
Clark Harold Henry
July 25, 1988
Automobile accident
Richard Maurice Blackwell
September 6, 1989
Motorcycle accident
Jeffery Scott Sanford
September 14, 1991
Gunfire
Ricky A. Yates
January 25, 1994
Motorcycle collision
Harvey Davis
May 21, 1996
Heart attack
Douglas John Noll
July 22, 1996
Vehicle pursuit
Randolph Michael Eng
December 21, 1996
Gunfire
Keith Alan Fricke
June 4, 1997
Motorcycle accident
Rebecca Ann Shaw
February 13, 1998
Struck by train
Oscar Clarence Hill IV
July 22, 2000
Vehicular assault
John Charles Risley
October 23, 2000
Gunfire
Barrett Travis Hill
December 4, 2000
Gunfire
Joseph Norman Dennis
May 22, 2001
Gunfire
Shane Ronald Bennett
June 12, 2002
Accidental gunfire
Thomas Flores Douglas
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Heart attack
Tommy L. Keen
September 15, 2008
Accidental
Dionicio M. Camacho
October 23, 2009
Heart attack
Eddie L. Wotipka
June 10, 2010
Drowned
Jesse "Trey" Valdez, III
October 29, 2014
Automobile; Narcotics involved
Tronoski Jones
August 20, 2015
Heart attack
Darren H. Goforth
August 28, 2015
Gunfire
Omar Diaz
July 6, 2019
Duty related illness
Sandeep S. Dhaliwal
September 27, 2019
Gunfire
Cornelius Anderson
July 12, 2020
Duty related illness
Bruce Watson
January 2, 2021
Motorcycle accident
Darren Almendarez
March 31, 2022
Gunfire

Correction facilities
Main article: Harris County, Texas jails
The 1200 Jail, the headquarters of the agency

The Harris County Sheriff's Office's correction facilities are located in Downtown Houston, all within a block of one another.[10] They include the 1200 Jail (located at 1200 Baker Street),[11] the 701 Jail,[12] and the 1307 Jail.[13] Previously 1301 Franklin and 301 San Jacinto were jails.[14][15]

As of 2012 the Harris County jail facilities together have a capacity for 9,434 inmates; at time they have held over 12,000. Due to the excess number of prisoners, the HCSO had to ship inmates to other jails, including some in Louisiana; in June 2010 1,600 Harris County inmates were serving time at other jails. By January 2012 the Harris County jails had 8,573, a decrease by 31% from 2008 to 2012, and there were only 21 inmates serving time in other jail facilities, all in Texas.[16]

The county opened the Atascocita boot camp in 1991, but it closed in September 2004 as the county decided that its rehabilitation value was questionable.[17] The vocational programs, once at the camp, were transferred to the Downtown area.[18]

On February 15, 2023, the Federal Bureau of Investigation opened a federal civil rights investigation into the jail after dozens of inmate deaths in the past few years: 21 in 2021, 28 in 2022, and 4 in the first two months of 2023.[19]

See also

References
  1. "Adopted Budget for Fiscal Year 2019-2020" (PDF). Harris County Government. Retrieved 7 June 2020.
  2. The 1200 Jail." Harris County, Texas. Accessed September 12, 2008. "The Sheriff's Office and Administration including the Business Office, Central Patrol, Human Resources, Public Services, Support Services and the Sheriffs Special Assistant are housed on the first and second floors outside of the security perimeter."
  3. "Contact". Harris County Sheriff's Office. Retrieved 2019-07-12. Harris County Sheriff's Office 1200 Baker Street Houston, TX 77002
  4. "Code of Criminal Procedure Chapter 14. Arrest Without Warrant".
  5. "Code of Criminal Procedure Chapter 15. Arrest Under Warrant".
  6. "Government Code Chapter 431. State Militia".
  7. "State, federal officials to probe death at diner". Houston Chronicle. June 4, 2017. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
  8. Despart, Zach (2017-06-06). "M.E. Declares Death of John Hernandez a Homicide By Strangulation". Houston Press. Retrieved 2017-06-06.
  9. "Harris County Sheriff's Office, TX".
  10. "Inmate Visitation Policies Archived 2010-02-09 at the Wayback Machine." Harris County Sheriff's Office. Retrieved on May 28, 2010.
  11. "Medical Archived 2010-02-01 at the Wayback Machine." Harris County Sheriff's Office. Retrieved on May 28, 2010.
  12. "701 North San Jacinto." Harris County Sheriff's Office. Retrieved on May 28, 2010.
  13. "The 1307 Jail Archived 2011-02-13 at the Wayback Machine," Harris County Sheriff's Office. Retrieved on May 28, 2010.
  14. "1301 Franklin facility." Harris County Sheriff's Office. February 22, 2003. Retrieved on May 28, 2010.
  15. "301 San Jacinto." Harris County Sheriff's Office. Retrieved on May 28, 2010.
  16. Morris, Mike (2012-01-06). "Thanks to less crowding, overflow inmates staying in Harris". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved 2018-09-11.
  17. Tilghman, Andrew (2004-08-29). "Harris County turns away from boot camps". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved 2019-08-11.
  18. Blakinger, Keri (2019-08-08). "Changing times: Harris County jail expands vocational classes to include women". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved 2019-08-11.
  19. Heyward, Giulia (February 15, 2023). "Dozens of inmates have died in a Houston jail since 2021. Now the FBI is investigating". NPR. Retrieved February 16, 2023.

Further reading
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