Joseph Campbell O’Connor was born on 16 October 1915 in Seattle, Washington.
Per his draft card, he was employed in 1940 with Armored Transport Inc in San Diego.
He was a Marine Corps veteran who began his career in law enforcement as a Deputy Sheriff in San Diego in 1946.
In 1951, he was named Chief of Police in El Cajon. At that time, a new building was constructed at 240 Highland Avenue, housing the Police Department as well as the City Hall and a Fire Station. The Police Department had 25 officers at this time.
When Sheriff Bert Strand retired early in 1962, County Supervisors appointed A. Elmer Jansen Sheriff and he was widely favored to win the 1962 election. Jansen was a respected Chief of Police in San Diego and had the support of the local media and power brokers. He barely missed winning outright in the primaries, leading to a runoff where O’Connor defeated him in a major upset.
O’Connor was reelected in 1966, and retired at the end of his term in 1970.
In 1966, he ran a Sheriff’s Office with a $4.7 Million budget, with “141 patrol vehicles, one bus, and three station wagons” distributed between headquarters, two substations in El Cajon and Vista, and offices in National City, Lemon Grove, Encinitas, Fallbrook, Jacumba, Ramona, Julian, Borrego, Campo, Oak Grove, and Valley Center.
At that time, the Sheriff was housing about 630 prisoners at a cost of “83 cents a day to feed them”.
He was credited with modernizing the Sheriff’s Reserve program (expanding to over 500 Reserves) and introducing helicopter services. Sheriff O’Connor also promoted Scouting as a way of preventing boys from becoming involved in illegal activities. O’Connor was a First Class Scout as a boy in Renton, Washington, and all his three sons went through Scouting, two becoming Explorers, with one of those (Mike O’Connor) becoming a Sheriff’s Deputy.
He was also noted for painting the Sheriff’s patrol vehicles an unusual shade described as salmon/pink. (When John Duffy was elected in 1970, he changed the colors to his campaign colors of Kelly green and white.)
O’Connor died in San Diego on 10 October 1974.
Sheriff O'Connor with Reporter in cell
