Eugene W. Biscailuz (March 12, 1883 – May 16, 1969) was an American police officer. He organized the
California Highway Patrol
The California Highway Patrol (CHP) is a state law enforcement agency of the U.S. state of California. The CHP has primary patrol jurisdiction over all California highways and roads and streets outside city limits, and can exercise law enforce ...
, and later became the 27th
Sheriff of
Los Angeles County, California, serving in that capacity for 26 years, from 1932 to 1958.
Family and early life
Biscailuz was born in
Boyle Heights
Boyle is an English, Irish and Scottish surname of Gaelic, Anglo-Saxon or Norman origin. In the northwest of Ireland it is one of the most common family names. Notable people with the surname include:
Disambiguation
* Adam Boyle (disambiguation) ...
on March 12, 1883. Sheriff Biscailuz's father,
Martin V. Biscailuz, was an attorney of French-
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
descent. His mother, Ida Rose Warren, was a descendant of Spanish pioneer Jose Maria Claudio Lopez, a soldier at the
San Gabriel Mission. Her father
William Warren was an early Los Angeles city marshal killed in a gun battle in 1870.
Biscailuz attended St. Vincent's College (now called
Loyola Marymount University
Loyola Marymount University (LMU) is a Private university, private Society of Jesus, Jesuit and Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary, Marymount research university in Los Angeles, California. It is located on the west side of the city near P ...
), later earning a law degree from the
University of Southern California.
In 1902, Biscailuz met and married Willette Harrison, whose father was a captain at
San Quentin State Prison and later the sheriff of
Marin County
Marin County is a county located in the northwestern part of the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 262,231. Its county seat and largest city is San Rafael. Marin County is acros ...
. The couple had two children, and stayed married until Willette's death in 1950.
Career
After working briefly as a shipping clerk in Los Angeles and San Francisco, Biscailuz was appointed as a foreclosure clerk by Sheriff
William A. Hammel in 1907. His law background helped him rise in the ranks until he was appointed undersheriff in 1921.
Biscailuz first came to public attention in 1923, when he was asked to accompany the District Attorney to Honduras to bring back convicted murderer Clara Phillips, who had escaped from the County Jail after her conviction. His wife accompanied him on the trip, and contracted a tropical infection from which she never fully recovered. Later, Biscailuz was involved in the 1927 manhunt for child kidnapper and murderer William Edward Hickman, and led raids that eventually helped bring an end to the gambling empire of
Tony Cornero
Anthony Cornero Stralla also known as "the Admiral" and "Tony the Hat" (August 18, 1899 – July 31, 1955) was a bootlegger and gambling entrepreneur in Southern California from the 1920s through the 1950s. During his varied career, he bootlegged ...
.
In 1929, Governor
C.C. Young asked Biscailuz to reorganize the old State Motor Patrol. He was appointed the first Superintendent of the new
California Highway Patrol
The California Highway Patrol (CHP) is a state law enforcement agency of the U.S. state of California. The CHP has primary patrol jurisdiction over all California highways and roads and streets outside city limits, and can exercise law enforce ...
(CHP), where Biscailuz organized the Highway Patrol system, then a new but separate law enforcement agency. Having finished his work for the CHP, in 1931 he resumed his post as undersheriff of Los Angeles County.
In 1932, after Sheriff
William Traeger stepped down to run for Congress, the Board of Supervisors appointed Biscailuz Sheriff in 1932 with Traeger's endorsement and supported by thousands of signed petitions. He later ran unopposed for six terms. As sheriff, he pioneered a practice of putting well-behaved prisoners to work on "honor farms" in hopes of rehabilitating them.
After the
1933 Long Beach earthquake
The 1933 Long Beach earthquake took place on March 10 at south of downtown Los Angeles. The epicenter was offshore, southeast of Long Beach, California, on the Newport–Inglewood Fault. The earthquake had a magnitude estimated at 6.4 , and a ...
, Biscailuz was called upon to send fire fighting personnel and equipment, but needed more information about where to send them and what was needed. There were also rumors that the city had been struck by a tidal wave, and that Catalina Island had sunk 369 feet. Phone lines in the region had been knocked out, and the roads were nearly impassable because of debris and fallen power lines. Biscailuz asked a friend, C. N. (Jimmy) James, a pilot of Western Air Express, to fly an open cockpit plane over Long Beach to gather more information. James was able to determine that the rumors about Catalina and the tidal wave were not true, and that there were only two small fires burning in Long Beach. The entire flight took approximately 30 minutes. Biscailuz revamped the Sheriff Department's aero squadron to include private pilots flying their own planes to assist in aerial searches and rescues. This unit later evolved into the Sky Knight project of 1966, and is now th
LASD Aero Bureau
In an
World War II interview, Biscailuz suggested that Mexican and Hispanic criminal activity in the city during wartime was a ploy by
Japanese-Americans
are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in number to constitute the sixth largest Asia ...
, who had by then removed to
concentration camps
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simp ...
, as a form of
sabotage, on the basis of race alone.
Upon his retirement in 1958, the Board of Supervisors named him "sheriff emeritus for the rest of his life."
Planning commission
He was a member of the city's first
planning commission in 1920, which at that time was composed of 51 members appointed by the City Council "to work out an organized, comprehensive plan of city development." Other notable members were
Charles A. Holland,
C.J. Colden,
Evan Lewis and
W.H. Workman Jr."City Planners' Progress Told," ''Los Angeles Times,'' April 13, 1920, page II-8
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References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Biscailuz, Eugene W.
1883 births
1969 deaths
Los Angeles County, California sheriffs
American people of Basque descent
American people of French descent
USC Gould School of Law alumni
Woodbury University alumni
20th-century American politicians