Peter J. Pitchess (February 26, 1912 – April 4, 1999) was the 28th

Sheriff A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland that is commonly transla ...

Los Angeles County, California Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the List of the most populous counties in the United States, most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, ...

, serving from 1958 to 1981. He is credited with modernizing the

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD), officially the County of Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, is a law enforcement agency serving Los Angeles County, California. LASD is the largest sheriff's department in the United States a ...

, turning the department into the sixth-largest police department, and the largest sheriff's department, in the United States.

Early life and career

Pitchess was born in

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...

, Utah. He was orphaned as a child, and attended

Bingham High School Bingham High School is a public high school located in South Jordan, Utah, United States. It is one of eight high schools in the Jordan School District. Teacher/pupil ratios are budgeted at 1 to 27.3, with actual class sizes varying. The school's ...

Bingham, Utah Bingham Canyon was a city formerly located in southwestern Salt Lake County, Utah, United States, in a narrow canyon on the eastern face of the Oquirrh Mountains. The Bingham Canyon area boomed during the first years of the twentieth century, as ...

. He received his

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

degree from the

University of Utah The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...

, and his

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...

degree from the university's

law school A law school (also known as a law centre or college of law) is an institution specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for becoming a lawyer within a given jurisdiction. Law degrees Argentina In Argentina, ...

, earning his law school tuition by working in the mines in

. He started his career as a special agent with the

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...

spending 12 years with that agency, in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

;

El Paso, Texas El Paso (; "the pass") is a city in and the county seat, seat of El Paso County, Texas, El Paso County in the western corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau w ...

;

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central ...

; and

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

. He rose to head the criminal investigative section of the Bureau's Los Angeles field office, resigning in 1952. He spent a year in the private sector, taking a position as chief of security for the

Richfield Oil Company Richfield Oil Corporation was an American petroleum company based in California from 1905 to 1966. In 1966 it merged with Atlantic Refining Company to form the Atlantic Richfield Company (later renamed ARCO). History The Richfield Oil Corporat ...

, before becoming

Under-Sheriff An undersheriff (or under-sheriff) is an office derived from ancient English custom that remains in, among other places, England and Wales and the United States, though performing different functions. United States In American law enforcement, t ...

reporting to sheriff

Eugene Biscailuz Eugene W. Biscailuz (March 12, 1883 – May 16, 1969) was an American police officer. He organized the California Highway Patrol, and later became the 27th Sheriff of Los Angeles County, California, serving in that capacity for 26 years, ...

. He was elected Sheriff in 1958 upon Biscailuz's retirement. During his 23 years as sheriff, he eliminated the county's informal

posse comitatus The ''posse comitatus'' (from the Latin for "power of the county/community/guard"), frequently shortened to posse, is in common law a group of people mobilized by the conservator of peace – typically a reeve, sheriff, chief, or another speci ...

, introduced the use of

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

s for

car chase A car chase or vehicle pursuit is the vehicular overland chase of one party by another, involving at least one automobile or other wheeled motor vehicle in pursuit, commonly hot pursuit of suspects by law enforcement. The rise of the automotive ...

s and crowd control, and set up the Special Enforcement Detail, one of the first

SWAT In the United States, a SWAT team (special weapons and tactics, originally special weapons assault team) is a police tactical unit that uses specialized or military equipment and tactics. Although they were first created in the 1960s to ...

teams in the United States. He linked the geographically separated offices and jails with Teletype machines for faster communication, and computerized the offices records in the 1960s. He also put in place a program allowing smaller communities to contract with the sheriff's department as an alternative to establishing their own police departments. Upon his retirement, the

Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors (LACBOS) is the five-member governing body of Los Angeles County, California, United States. History On April 1, 1850 the citizens of Los Angeles elected a three-man Court of Sessions as their first ...

designated him as "sheriff

emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

for the rest of his life." In addition to his law enforcement work, Pitchess served on the Los Angeles County Civil Defense and Disaster Commission during the nuclear crisis in the early 1960s. The position was important because it was at the time of the peak of the cold war nuclear scare.

Death and legacy

Pitchess died at his home in

Newport Beach Newport Beach is a coastal city in South Orange County, California. Newport Beach is known for swimming and sandy beaches. Newport Harbor once supported maritime industries however today, it is used mostly for recreation. Balboa Island, Newport ...

on April 4, 1999, at the age of 87, from

heart failure Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, a ...

. He is buried in Pacific View Memorial Park in

Corona del Mar Corona del Mar (Spanish for "Crown of the Sea") is a seaside neighborhood in the city of Newport Beach, California. It generally consists of all the land on the seaward face of the San Joaquin Hills south of Avocado Avenue to the city limits, as ...

, California. His name is well known as a party in a famous California legal case entitled ''Pitchess v. Superior Court'', which entitles a defendant to obtain records of public complaints, using what is now known as a

Pitchess motion A ''Pitchess'' motion is a request made by the defense in a California criminal case, such as a DUI case or a resisting arrest case, to access a law enforcement officer's personnel information when the defendant alleges in an affidavit that the of ...

, about the use of excessive force by police officers. Pitchess' office had claimed that such records were proprietary, and had refused to provide them following a

subpoena duces tecum A ''subpoena duces tecum'' (pronounced in English ), or subpoena for production of evidence, is a court summons ordering the recipient to appear before the court and produce documents or other tangible evidence for use at a hearing or trial. In s ...

. His petition was ultimately denied by the

California Supreme Court The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sacra ...

in a 7-0 decision. The

Peter J. Pitchess Detention Center Peter J. Pitchess Detention Center, also known as Pitchess Detention Center or simply Pitchess, is an all-male county detention center and correctional facility named in honor of Peter J. Pitchess located directly east of exit 173 off Interstat ...

in Los Angeles County is named after him.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pitchess, Peter J. 1912 births 1999 deaths Los Angeles County, California sheriffs People from Newport Beach, California 20th-century American politicians People from Bingham Canyon, Utah