The Sheriff

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

In the United States, a sheriff is generally the chief law enforcement officer for a county or parish. It is usually an elected position, though in emergencies a sheriff may be appointed by county officials.

The name is derived from the British "shire reeve", corrupted to "sheriff" over time. The position had similar duties and powers, but was appointed by the Crown. Perhaps the most famous Sheriff of this type is the Sheriff of Nottingham.

In a Western, the Sheriff is generally the closest and main law enforcer. Their function in a story is very flexible, ranging from The Hero through Reasonable Authority Figure and Obstructive Bureaucrat to Corrupt Hick. It's a very lucrative and powerful (within the county) position, but also comes with great danger and responsibility.

In most works of fiction, the sheriff wears a distinct badge, usually star-shaped. If he is ever disgraced or otherwise found to be morally unworthy of his title, the customary action is for The Hero to shoot a hole through this badge, symbolic of the title being stripped.

In some Westerns, "Sheriff" is conflated with "Town Marshal" (not to be confused with the US Marshal, like Marshal Dillon of Gunsmoke,) a more localized version. If the plotline is about cleaning up one lawless town, with no reference to the rest of the county, you may be seeing this in action.

The Sheriff often handles minor offenses himself, locking up drunks and rowdies for the night. But serious crimes must be held over until the Circuit Judge arrives. He's usually assisted by at least one Deputy Sheriff (often a Clueless Deputy), whom he appoints.

In westerns, this character often overlaps with The Gunslinger, though this is not always the case. A Real Life example of a non-gunfighter sheriff was Bat Masterson, who preferred the "big stick" approach.

Sheriffs are usually most active in areas that cannot support their own police force so expect to see them in rural areas or Small Towns.

Stock plot: The Gunslinger (sometimes, the Young Gun, but if so he'll have his more experienced advisor with him) comes into town, and is immediately appointed The Sheriff by the townspeople. This invariably means there's a villain (an Outlaw or a old-west-style Corrupt Corporate Executive) in town who has run off or killed the old sheriff and is terrorizing the townspeople, stealing cattle, cheating at poker, and probably not paying his brothel bill. It's up to the new guy to avoid getting killed, beat the villain, then move on. Also see The Drifter for more detail on this.

In the modern day, sheriffs tend to use their guns a lot less, though they remain important to law enforcement, particularly in rural areas. (In metropolitan counties, the sheriff's department generally runs the jail and does process serving, among other duties.) As with everything else In America, this varies from state to state.

Examples of The Sheriff include:

Comic Books

  • Jesse Custer becomes Sheriff of Salvation in Preacher.
  • Sheriff Rick Grimes from The Walking Dead and its TV adaptation. However, since society has pretty much collapsed by the start of both series, being a sheriff basically means Rick has a cool costume and a Nice Hat.

Film

Literature

  • In the Louis L'Amour novel The Daybreakers, Orrin Sackett parlays his successful term as a town marshal for Mora, New Mexico to run for county sheriff. His brother Tyrel's turn as town marshal for a small mining town doesn't go as well, though he makes a fine deputy sheriff later.
  • Robert McCloskey's children's books Homer Price and Centerburg Tales feature a Spoonerism-prone character who not only is The Sheriff, but is only known as The Sheriff.
  • Sheriff Baker from The Stand

Live-Action TV

  • Andy Taylor of The Andy Griffith Show.
  • Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane from The Dukes of Hazzard is the Corrupt Hick version.
    • Also on the show was Sheriff Little of Chickasaw County, a Scary Black Man version.
  • Sheriff Lucas Buck from American Gothic who was apparently Satan.
  • Sheriff Elroy P. Lobo from B.J. and the Bear and its spinoff, The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo, is a (mild) Corrupt Hick version.
  • As Neptune, California, in Veronica Mars is an unincorporated town, there is a Sheriff's Department for the county, not a police force. Keith Mars is the ex-sheriff, ousted for political reasons.
  • Sheriff Jack Carter of Eureka, though his job isn't so much to clean up the titular town, as to keep its Mad Scientist residents from turning it into a wasteland in the first place. This is a bit of Hollywood Law as Carter was appointed the Sheriff of Eureka by the federal government rather than elected by local residents, as is normal in the United States.
  • Twin Peaks included two sheriffs, one in the series and one in The Movie, Fire Walk with Me. The series had Twin Peaks' Reasonable Authority Figure Sheriff Harry S. Truman, while the movie had Deer Meadow's Corrupt Hick Sheriff Cable.
  • Sheriff Valenti from Roswell
  • Once Upon a Time has first Graham and then Emma, who surprisingly wins the election after Graham's death even though Regina put up her own puppet candidate.

Radio

Video Games

  • Lucas Simms of Fallout 3 is the self-appointed sheriff of Megaton.
    • Considered to be a bit of a Bunny Ears Lawyer by the people of Megaton because of the whole "Cowboy getup".
    • From the first game we have Sheriff Killian of Junktown
    • Fallout 2 gives us Marcus of Broken Hills, Marion of Redding, and Dumont of the NCR.

Web Comics

Western Animation

  • Magilla Gorilla had secondary cartoons starring Sheriff (Bing! Bing! BING!) Ricochet Rabbit.
  • Quickdraw McGraw is a sheriff as well.
  • There was an episode of The Flintstones in which Fred ended up as Sheriff with the bad guys about to ride into town.
  • Hoot Kloot, a cartoon series produced by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises.

Real Life

  • Buford Pusser, as fictionalized in Walking Tall.
  • Bat Masterson
  • Wyatt Earp (Town Marshal variety, notable in the fact that his famous shoot out involved a conflict between the town marshals and the county sheriffs).
    • Even more noteworthy in that the large majority of his career was spent arresting criminals, rather than killing them. In fact, if the stories are to be believed, until the series of events that eventually led to the showdown at the OK Corral, Earp had never killed a criminal in his entire career.
      • His preferred method of dealing with miscreants was pistol-whipping, or pulling on their ear.
  • Pat Garrett, the man who shot Billy The Kid (and wrote an awful book about it).
  • Bill Tilghman - the last of the old Western sheriffs. Rode with Masterson and Earp, killed in the line of duty at age 70.
  • David Reichert (US congressman from Washington State between 2005 and 2019) is best known for his pursuit and capture of the Green River Killer, and is still known in his local area simply as "The Sheriff".
  • Johnny Behan, county sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona (including the town of Tombstone) during the Gunfight at the OK Corral. He was a character in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Spectre of the Gun", which featured a recreation of the gunfight.
  • Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona. Makes his prisoners wear pink underwear, sleep in tents, and eat spoiled bologna sandwiches, among other things. Viewed as either a Cowboy Cop or a Corrupt Hick depending on how you feel about prisoner's rights.
    • Lending further weight to the latter characterization, Arpaio also has a well-documented history of using his deputies to harass and intimidate his political opponents and media critics.
    • His alleged mistreatment of racial minorities, particularly Latinos, has also been a subject of controversy. This has resulted in investigations by the federal government and has resulted in his office being forbidden to detain suspected illegal immigrants.
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