Washington County Sheriff's Office (Maryland)

The Washington County Sheriff's Office is a law enforcement agency headquartered in Hagerstown, Maryland. The agency polices Washington County, population 150,926 (2018), a 467-sq mile rural county in the state of Maryland. The office is a full service agency, which means the Sheriff, Douglas W. Mullendore, and his deputies do patrol work and enforce laws as police officers, provide security in the circuit court system and operate the county jail. Hagerstown, where the county seat is, has its own police department.

Brief history

Since its inception in the 18th century, the Sheriff's Office has had a total of 79 Sheriffs. The first elected man to the job was George Hershey. He served from 1777 to 1780. The Sheriff's term in office was reduced to two years in 1850 until 1946 when it was extended to a four-year term, a rule that remains to date. The current Sheriff, Mullendore, was elected in 2006.

Divisions

The Sheriff's Office has three main divisions: patrol, judicial and detention.

The patrol division is the backbone and flagship department of the office. Deputies enforce traffic laws and respond to calls for service in unincorporated areas of the county. They share jurisdiction with the Maryland State Police Hagerstown barrack. The patrol department operates with special units within itself such as investigations, gangs, school resource program, K-9 and traffic interdiction. The division has a Special Response Team that includes officers from the Hagerstown Police Department. It also includes the Washington County Narcotics Task Force which has deputies and police officers from the city of Hagerstown.

Deputies assigned to the judicial division protect the Washington County Circuit Court building in Hagerstown. Their role is to provide security to the court's staff and visitors during trials, transport suspects from the county jail to court for judicial proceedings, and serve civil process papers. Judicial deputies are sworn law enforcement officers that have arrest powers just like patrol deputies. They can, in theory, conduct traffic stops and respond to calls for service although it is not their primary mission.

The detention division is housed in the same complex as the patrol division, on Western Maryland Parkway, and has been since 1984. The detention center can house a total of 458 inmates and is the first point of contact or gateway to all persons arrested in Washington County by law enforcement agencies. Depending on the type of crime (state or federal) and/or length of sentence, convicted criminals may remain at the jail to serve their sentence or be transferred to either a state or federal facility. Deputies working at the county jail are not sworn officers (unlike in some states like California where some detention deputies are sworn and police-trained but work in jails in their rookie years, or Virginia). Although they wear the same uniform as patrol and judicial deputies, they typically do not have any police powers outside the detention center and do not carry firearms.

Since April 2019, the Washington County Sheriff's Office and the Hagerstown Police Department have been operating a joint entry level training academy for their recruits and new hires from other smaller agencies in Washington County and beyond. Until construction of an actual building is complete, classes are held on Hagerstown Community College property. The first class graduated on October 15th 2019 with 11 new law enforcement officers.

Killed in the line of duty

The Officer Down Memorial Page website lists one on-duty death in the history of the Sheriff's Office. Constable Thomas E. Hardy was shot and killed on Oct. 10, 1905 while conducting a patrol check on a train along with two other officers near Weverton Station. The suspect, the website says, was arrested.

Trivia

- Sheriff George Swearingen, elected in 1827, ended his term two years later when he was sentenced to death by hanging for the murder of his wife.

- Sheriff Charles Price, elected in 1958, died while in office (literally). The death was ruled a suicide.

See also

References
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