Those who rush can yet secure a reservation to hear Sheriff Shannon Dicus address the Redlands Republican Women’s Club during its luncheon at the Redlands Country Club on April 21.
For $25 and either an email to reservations@RedlandsRWF.org or a phone call to Laurie Tremain at 909-792-2501, a ticket to the event, which is to last from 11:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. and will include the serving of lunch, can be had.
Those who cannot get a ticket to the event, to be held at 1749 Garden Street, can hear the sheriff’s address, but will not be seated for lunch.
Dicus was appointed to the the San Bernardino County sheriff’s post by the board of supervisors in 2021 upon the recommendation of his predecessor, John McMahon. He is the latest holder of the sheriff’s reins as the head of the historic Frank Bland Political Machine, which came into existence in 1954 when Frank Bland defeated then-incumbent Sheriff Gene Mueller. Control of the machine passed from Bland to Floyd Tidwell in 1982, from Tidwell to Dick Williams in 1990, from Williams to Gary Penrod in 1994, from Penrod to Rod Hoops in 2009 and from Hoops to McMahon in 2012.
Dicus graduated from Twentynine Palms Highs School and served in the U.S. Army for three years as a military policemen assigned to the 101st Airborne Division, in which capacity he was deployed to the Middle East and South America. After his discharge from the Army, Dicus returned to San Bernardino County where he worked for the Office of Veterans Affairs as a police officer at the Jerry L. Pettis Veterans Hospital in Loma Linda.
Dicus holds a bachelor’s degree from California State University San Bernardino in criminal justice studies. He has a master’s degree in communication from California Baptist University.
With the sheriff’s department, he was assigned at one time or another to the department’s corrections division at the Glen Helen Rehabilitation and West Valley Detention centers. He worked patrol out of the Apple Valley, Victorville, Barstow and Victor Valley sheriff’s stations. He worked in the department’s specialized investigations unit as a narcotics detective. He was assigned to the special weapons and tactics team, known as SWAT. He for a time worked in the department’s intelligence division, which was attached to the department’s command echelon, a position from which he and that unit’s investigators gathered compromising information relating to the county’s politicians, elected officials and community leaders, in particular the council members in the cities and towns which contract with the sheriff’s department to provide law enforcement services. He also had a supervisory assignment in the department’s technical services, communications and records divisions, as well as its bureau of administration.
With the 2017 retirement of Assistant Sheriff David Williams, who previously appeared to be on a trajectory to succeed McMahon as sheriff, an effort to groom Dicus as the next sheriff began. Dicus moved into the undersheriff post, where he had immediate authority over the internal affairs division which is referred to in San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department parlance as the professional standards division, its civil liabilities division which goes hand-in-hand with professional standards, and the bureau of administration.