The Marin County Sheriff's Office Dive Team provides services to the local waterways of Marin County, as well as mutual aid throughout the Bay Area.
The Marin County Sheriff’s Office Dive Team is made up of 10 members and a commander. All of the members are full-time sworn deputy sheriffs devoted to providing professional level diving services to all of Marin County. Public Safety Divers perform underwater search and recovery of drowning victims or evidence of crimes in addition to providing services to other counties within California and are available to assist in rescue operations.
The dive team was first formed using volunteers. In the early to mid-1980’s, the team was converted to full-time sworn deputies. At that time it consisted of 4 divers using their own equipment and no formal underwater search and rescue training. Since then, members attend monthly training; dive operations are typically done in cold water with little to no visibility and a high probability of entanglement, members perform extensive training to make sure divers are as safe as possible. All members are public safety divers and have completed ERD1 Emergency Rescue Diver 1 training.
Through donations and public safety state grants, the Marin County Sheriff’s Dive Team outfits each member with modern dive gear including but not limited to dry-suits, buoyancy control device (BCD) and full face masks. Divers use a hard wired surface to diver / diver to diver communication system and an underwater Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) to assist in dive operations. One of the most recent acquisitions will enable the Dive Team to transition to surface supplied air using a diver’s umbilical and a Surface Supplied Breathing Apparatus (SSBA).
Marin County Sheriff’s Dive Team’s equipment is top of the line and has dedicated utility vehicles for training or in the event of a call out. Dive team’s current vehicles are a utility van (retired ambulance) and a 4X4 F350 with a 25 foot trailer. Marin County Sheriff’s Dive Team is an integral component with the Marine Patrol. Members have trained with other agencies including Southern Marin Fire Department, Contra Costa County and the California Highway Patrol. Contra Costa County, Sonoma County and California Highway Patrol have helicopters that were utilized to shuttle divers from the shore to the middle of the bay.
Since the early 1980’s, when the Dive Team became made up of full-time sworn Deputies, they have assisted in searching for a helicopter crash, murder victims, suicide victims as well as persons who have been involved in accidents such as car crashes and boating accidents. Dive Team members have assisted with these types of calls locally in Marin County as well as other surrounding counties.
Divers helped recover numerous gym bags containing body parts from the Mokelumne River on the Sacramento Delta. The bags contained the dismembered body parts of three murder victims who were part of a murder spree during which five people were killed by three suspects out of Concord. They have also searched for a kidnapped girl in Vallejo; the recovery of a suicide victim who drove her car into Stafford Lake; the search for the body of a boater in Lake Sonoma and the recovery of a teenage boy who drowned while fishing at a ranch reservoir. Along with many more cases.
Dive team members also assisted the Modesto Police Department in their underwater search of the bay for evidence in the Laci Peterson case.
Recently Dive team members assisted Mendocino County with locating the body of a drowning victim. They also assisted with the San Rafael Police Department with searching for evidence in a homicide case; assisted with the search of the missing elderly couple in West Marin and the recovery of a body and vehicle after an accident in Bel Marin Keys.