Pierce County Sheriff's Office

Pierce County, Washington has relied on its sheriff for public safety since 1853, and today the office describes itself as the second-largest sheriff's agency in the state, policing unincorporated areas and providing full law enforcement under contract to cities that brand the service as their own police department. Its specialty units are unusually deep. The Air Unit, flying aircraft since the 1940s, operates Pierce One, a Cessna 206 obtained through a Homeland Security grant with the Port of Tacoma and fitted with a FLIR camera and live video downlink. A part-time Hazardous Devices Squad of three deputies, a detective and a sergeant stays on call around the clock for explosives calls across the county and for other agencies, and a Swiftwater Rescue Team drawn from search and rescue, the dive team and marine services responds when rivers rise. The office anchors the regional Child Abduction Response Team with local police, the FBI and Joint Base Lewis-McChord military police. Seven animal control officers field more than 10,000 calls a year in the unincorporated county, and a jail road crew of five inmates and a corrections deputy, funded by Public Works since 1991, clears litter and illegal dump sites.