A Ride-Along Through History of Crime Busters

Louis Diot spent 32 years as a Los Angeles County sheriff’s detective, chasing burglars and car thieves through southeast Los Angeles County.

Now he works and lives near the neighborhood he once patrolled; he’s assistant general manager of the Sheriff’s Relief Assn. and manager of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Museum.

There, on the grounds of the sheriff’s training academy in Whittier, he guides museum visitors through audio, visual and tangible department history, from horseback days to helicopter patrols and rescues.

“It’s a good way to stay in touch with the department and oversee its history,” Diot said.

As trainees shout cadence outside, he shows off some of his favorite exhibits, such as the 1938 black and white Studebaker patrol car -- standard issue in that era -- and a 1978 Kawasaki Police 1000 motorcycle. Used in parades and car shows, both were restored and donated by retired deputies.

“There’s the scorched wingtip from the department’s airplane that Sheriff Sherman Block was traveling in when it was struck by lightning,” Diot said.

Block, sheriff from 1982 to 1998, was on a bumpy reconnaissance flight over Los Angeles during a 1988 April shower when the bolt hit the aircraft, which landed safely.

The museum is a crime-story paradise for both history and law enforcement buffs. Handwritten prisoner logbooks, more than 100 years old, are kept in glass cases under lock and key. The books, once the official system for identifying arrestees, note inmates’ physical characteristics and include their photographs and descriptions of their alleged crimes.

Constructed in 1989 by volunteers, the museum houses documents and some oddities, including:

* The branch of a Long Beach rubber tree used in 14 official hangings.

* A wooden slot machine collected in a sheriff’s 1891 raid.

* A “chuck-a-luck” -- three dice in a birdcage -- dating from the 1860s.

* A 500-pound robot donated by the arson and explosives unit.

* A plaster cast from the sneaker shoeprint of Richard Ramirez, the convicted serial killer known as the Night Stalker.

The museum’s walls and display cases are lined with real “Wanted” posters, antique badges, guns, uniforms and two saddles, including one from 19th century Sheriff Martin Aguirre, who was elected because of his heroism: In 1886, he rode his horse into floodwaters to save a score of drowning people.

The sheriff’s post became an elective office here in 1850, the same year California gained statehood. Back when sheriffs embodied the West, they were supposed to be bold men of action.

Sheriff James Barton and three deputies were killed pursuing outlaws in 1857. Sheriff William Getman died after only seven days on the job, killed during an 1858 shootout with a man the newspapers described as a maniac.

Aguirre was elected in 1889 by a grateful public, three years after his heroic deed. A diminutive, one-eyed lawman, he was nonetheless famous for his aim with a knife.

He is the only sheriff depicted in the museum with a life-size dummy. The mannequin sits in a replica of his original office with an adjacent empty jail cell.

Elections or no, for much of the 20th century, L.A. County’s top cop was virtually anointed. In 1932, when Sheriff William Traeger quit after 11 years to run for Congress, the Board of Supervisors rubber-stamped his chosen heir, Undersheriff Eugene Biscailuz.

Biscailuz ran unopposed six times before handing off the job to his favorite, Peter Pitchess.

When Pitchess retired after more than 23 years, he hand-picked his successor, Sherman Block.

The legacy chain was broken when the current sheriff, Lee Baca, challenged Block in 1998. Block, 74, died of a brain hemorrhage before election day.

One museum exhibit is a TV monitor mounted in a section of a sheriff’s rescue helicopter. Video images show the copter on active duty, swooping down over a steep canyon before deputies haul up a stretcher holding an accident victim.

The sheriff’s aerial reconnaissance unit began in the late 1920s with a group of volunteer pilots, which later included screen idol Robert Taylor. That unit, started by then-Undersheriff Biscailuz, was the genesis of today’s Aero Bureau.

Another exhibit salutes the women of the Sheriff’s Department. The first female deputy, Margaret Queen Adams, joined the force in 1912. Sixty years later, the first dozen women were assigned to actual patrol duty, instead of desk duties and female jail chores.

Despite the hostility of male colleagues, who called them “the dirty dozen” and “a necessary evil,” the women began patrolling West Hollywood, Cerritos, East Los Angeles, Altadena, Bellflower and Lakewood. Still the men objected, contending that “the ladies” should not be allowed to respond to “hot calls” -- crimes in progress or life-threatening situations.

But one by one, women confronted the obstacles -- the skirts, the heels, the guns in the purses, the less-than-gracious male officers -- and did their jobs.

By 1976, 35 women were patrolling the streets as deputies. They included Erma Alvarez, who became the first female law enforcement officer in California to be shot in the line of duty.

Male deputies continued to protest, unsuccessfully, against women patrolling the streets.

“I love my job,” Alvarez said in a Times interview as she recovered from her wound. “I just want to be competent, to be accepted by my peers as an officer.”

That came to pass, Diot said. She retired in the 1990s as a polygraph supervisor in the department’s crime lab.

Olympian Lillian Copeland was another standout. She had won silver and gold medals in 1928 and 1932 in track and field events. The athlete, who was Jewish, boycotted Hitler’s 1936 Games and joined the Sheriff’s Department. She retired in 1960, with the rank of sergeant, after 24 years in the Juvenile Bureau.

Other museum footage shows a million-dollar dope seizure in 1959 in El Monte, scenes from the courthouse during the 1970 prosecution of killer Charles Manson, and the 1965 Watts riots.

There is also footage of the 1982 “Twilight Zone” movie-set helicopter tragedy that killed actor Vic Morrow and two children, and the aftermath of a 1986 midair collision between an Aeromexico DC-9 and a small plane over Cerritos. The crash killed everyone on both planes and several on the ground, 82 in all.

A black marble wall with 453 names honors all Los Angeles County peace officers -- including those from the Los Angeles Police Department -- who died in the line of duty. First on the list: Sheriff James Barton, 1857.

The museum, at 11515 S. Colima Road, is open to the public from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays. Admission is free, but donations are welcome.