The Investigations Unit is comprised of a Lieutenant, Sergeant, 10 multi-disciplinary Detectives and a Crime Analyst. These dedicated investigators are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week to respond to critical incidents throughout the county. They typically manage cases requiring highly specialized training and experience which exceeds the scope and resources available to a patrol deputy. Their extensive caseloads include property and financial crimes, elder abuse, child abuse, sexual assault and violent crimes.
In addition to criminal investigations, detectives are called upon to work in partnership with allied agencies who frequently share their specialized knowledge and training with other members of the Sheriff’s Office and various community groups and organizations.
2019 presented many challenges and a few big changes to the Investigations Unit. In prior years, operation of the Sheriff’s Office was spread across multiple buildings with the Investigations office located five miles from the main office. This presented a considerable restriction to efficiencies and delayed the flow of information between patrol and detectives.
In September of 2019, construction was completed on the new 108,000 square foot Public Safety Facility, which was designed to host all functions of the Sheriff’s Office, and to bring the previously displaced units under one roof.
On September 9th, the Investigations Unit was honored to be the first unit of the Sheriff’s Office to relocate to the new facility.
This facility was designed to improve efficiencies agency wide, however, no one could have predicted how soon and how significantly those will be realized. Just over a month later, Detectives were called upon to investigate the line of duty death of one of our own.
The functional and forward thinking design of the Public Safety Facility enabled Investigations to coordinate a massive agency response and to conduct the type of thorough and uncompromising investigation required to honor Deputy Ishmael’s service and sacrifice.
Investigators were required to delay their grieving, set aside their emotions and bring to bear all their collective expertise to manage a multi-agency critical incident response and criminal investigation.
This investigation required a massive amount of allied agency assistance. These agencies included the El Dorado County District Attorney's Office, the Placerville, South Lake Tahoe and Folsom Police Departments, California Highway Patrol, FBI, ATF, DEA and the US Attorney's Office (to name a few). These agencies provided support and assistance to our staff in tasks such as conducting the crime scene investigation, assisting with physical evidence collection, and obtaining statements.
Detectives
27
2019 Major Crimes
Homicide
Rape
Robbery
Assault
Burglary
Larceny
Auto Theft
4
51
29
782
487
1,190
27