Rick Bessinger, who within the last two months was promoted to the post of assistant sheriff, will move into the undersheriff position, effective August 24.
“I am pleased to announce that I have selected Assistant Sheriff Rick Bessinger to serve as undersheriff for our department,” Sheriff Shannon Dicus posted on the sheriff’s department’s website. “Assistant Sheriff Bessinger has demonstrated exceptional leadership qualities and sound decision-making skills throughout his 27 years career. His expertise in both operational and support functions of the department will enable him to excel in this role.”
According to Dicus, “His prior experience includes serving as deputy chief of the personnel/emergency services bureau as well as the desert/mountain patrol bureaus, and assignments in corrections, professional standards and specialized investigations.”
Bessinger grew up in San Bernardino, joined the department in 1996 and served in multiple basic assignments such as working the jails and patrol. After being promoted to detective, he worked within the homicide detail, as a case detective and later, upon being promoted to sergeant, as a team leader.
He served as a sergeant and watch commander in Victorville before promoting to lieutenant.
Bessinger’s wife, Roxanne, was previously a detective in the department’s crimes against children unit. She retired in late 2013. Their daughter, a former sheriff’s deputy, like her parents, at one point worked at the Victorville Sheriff’s Station.
Rick Bessinger worked extensively in the High Desert, where he resided and was a member of the Rotary Club.
After achieving the rank of captain, he oversaw the High Desert Detention Center, which houses over 2,100 inmates.
In 2018, he was transferred back to the Victorville Sheriff’s Station as the captain in command there, doubling as the Victorville chief of police.
The department underwent a management change at the top when Sheriff John McMahon somewhat abruptly retired in mid-2021, insisting that the board of supervisors replace him with his hand-picked successor, Undersheriff Shannon Dicus. While Dicus matched McMahon’s expectation of what he wanted in a sheriff and as someone to protect his legacy, the two did not share, precisely, the same vision with regard to the ideal administrative and managerial team for the department.
Looking toward his need to run for election to remain as sheriff in 2022, Dicus considered the two assistant sheriffs he had inherited from McMahon Robert Wickum and Horace Boatwright and chose Boatwright to serve as his undersheriff – second in command – in 2021, a move seen as political in nature throughout much of the department. Dicus promoted Sam Fisk to assistant sheriff thereafter and when Wickum retired, replaced him with Deputy Chief John Ades.
At that time, issues relating to the department’s operations began to manifest as problems, including overspending with regard to certain programs, ones ultimately attributed to having individuals in key leadership posts who had little or no administrative expertise.
A third assistant sheriff position was created and filled with Deputy Chief Trevor Newport. Within short order, however, Ades mysteriously and without explanation retired, prompting Dicus in August 2023 to elevate Bessinger, then a deputy chief, to assistant sheriff.
There followed the retirement of Boatwright, at which point Dicus considered his three logical alternatives – Fisk, Newport and Bessinger. His preference was Bessinger, as he is disinclined to position Fisk or Newport to become sheriff when he leaves, it is anticipated, next year. Bessinger at that point, however, had not yet reached the one-year mark in his most recent promotion. Dicus turned to Steve Higgins, who had been retired from the assistant sheriff position for three years to serve as undersheriff in a six-month assignment. During that half-year, which is to end this month, Higgins had identified a plethora of organizational flaws which had gone unaddressed or had been exacerbated during Dicus’s tenure as sheriff, aa few of which Dicus would have preferred remained uncovered.
Bessinger, who with Fisk participated in the department review of the department’s response to the 2023 mountain blizzard response during which at least 13 people perished during a less than one-month period in February and March of that year, is expected to make major corrections with regard to a host of department functions and operations.
While being placed into the undersheriff position is deemed an honor and recognition of his ability and past achievements as well as a ticket toward becoming San Bernardino County’s next sheriff, for Bessinger the assignment is a mixed blessing. The sheriff’s department has a history of moving individuals into positions that can require a degree of ability and finesse beyond what is normally cultivated in peace officers, resulting in problems that in the past have gone unresolved and which worsened upon festering. Dicus, according to those in his organization, is prone to emotional decision-making, and wants immediate results in circumstances where complication makes such resolution nuanced and difficult. While Bessinger welcomes the promotion, working for the headstrong Dicus, a forceful personality who has in the past bypassed some of his most senior officers for promotion because of his lack of confidence in them and often second-guesses his own personnel decisions, could prove a challenge.
For the time being, Dicus is electing to not fill the third assistant sheriff slot.
Bessinger will assume the position of undersheriff on August 24, 2024.
–Mark Gutglueck