In 1935, Riverside County Sheriff took two big steps
Summer 1935 was significant in the history of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.
Two advancements that may seem normal or modern to us today happened that summer.
In July 1935, the state legislature passed a bill that would fund installation of telegraphic typewriter service (otherwise known as teletype machines) in the sheriff’s department offices in Riverside County. While California counties had been offered the opportunity to install the service a few years before, Riverside County had not. There had been a few times when a crime warranted quick communication with the state and the Riverside County Sheriff had been forced to travel to San Bernardino County to use that department’s teletype service.
This new system connected Riverside County to all other counties in the state for alarms in case of an emergency. It also facilitated normal communications about crimes between the state and county. The teletype system was a less expensive way to communicate than the telephone or sending telegrams through commercial providers and would pay for itself through reduced communication costs.
The Riverside Daily Press reported that Sheriff Carl Rayburn said the teletype machines were credited with aiding in the capture of many dangerous criminals in the state because of the speed with which information could be transmitted via the teletype system.
The other upgrade that summer was a purely local initiative.
In August, it was reported that the Riverside County Board of Supervisors allocated money to hire additional sheriff deputies so the Sheriff’s Department could become a 24-hour-a-day agency.
While it was unclear if the department had ever been 24 hours a day before that. At that point, in 1935, there were only day-time deputies who worked 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. There was a desk sergeant on duty through the night, but if something happened he would have to call a deputy at home who had already worked a full day. That man would then have to put on his uniform, drive to the sheriff’s department headquarters in downtown Riverside, get a department car and then head to wherever the call came from.
This created a considerable delay in responding to crimes between 5 p.m. in the evening and 8 a.m. the next morning, when deputies returned to duty. It also made it very difficult on the deputies who might work a full day, be dragged out of bed in the night to respond to a crime call, then have to report to work again the next morning.
The cost included $125 a month for the salary of an additional desk sergeant and $135 a month for the salary of each of the deputies who would work the night shift.
The push for night coverage came from D.S. Bell, a prominent orange grower. Bell was concerned about “radicals … fomenting agricultural strikes.” Apparently, the sheriff’s department at that time was involved in trying to prevent that type of activity.
Whatever the reason, the two changes made in the summer of 1935 at the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department were significant steps forward in creating the modern law enforcement department we have today.