Alleged affair wasn’t first police chief scandal in Fresno. A drug bust, lost explosives, more

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Fresno Police Chief Paco Balderrama resigned on Tuesday, following a months-long investigation into an alleged affair he’d been having with the wife of a subordinate officer.

The scandal, which broke only after the city issued a news release earlier this month, marred what had been to-that-point a successful tenure for the chief — one that saw reductions in violent crime and an increase in the number of sworn officers serving the city.

Balderrama is by no means the first Fresno police chief to become embroiled in controversy.

There are stories of scandal within the department all the way back to William T. Shaw in 1906, and at least seven decades worth of documented reports on Fresno police chiefs who were investigated, fired or even jailed for perceived misconduct.

Here are five, in chronological order.

Arrested for tax evasion

Ray T. Wallace served as Fresno Police Chief for a decade starting in 1939. Following his retirement, Wallace was investigated for tax evasion (and how he was able to amass nearly 2,000 acres of land while chief, according to the Los Angeles Times).

He was convicted and sentenced to federal prison in 1952.

Questions about pension payouts for a convicted felon (in Wallace’s case, $150 per month for life and paid to his wife upon death) were litigated and made it all the way to California’s Supreme Court.

The infamous Hank Morton

Henry (Hank) Morton had the distinction of being Fresno’s longest running police chief, serving more than two decades (1950-1972).

The man was notorious.

Or, that’s how the Rock Island Auction Company portrayed him, when it was selling off some of his personal effects in 2022. Included in the auction lot was his Smith & Wesson Model 36.

According to the listing, Morton was, “by all accounts ... the antithesis of what a good police chief should be,” having control over gambling, prostitution and drug operations in the city.

“He was even married to the madam of the largest brothel in Fresno.”

It’s a story that has been repeated by multiple sources, including KQED and Fresno author Mark Arax, who painted Morton’s police department as utterly corrupt in his 1996 memoir “In My Father’s Name.”

Morton was actually fired by then-City Manager H. K. Hunter in 1965, only to be reinstated.

Officers getting double-pay working security

Harold Britton oversaw Fresno police through the bulk of the 1970s, a time when federal investigations led to a reorganization of the department.

This put him at odds with the city manager at the time, who “ordered the shake-up after federal agents complained that they suspected police of leaking information to suspects involved in organized crime,” according Britton’s obituary in The Fresno Bee in 2013.

Britton was also criticized for allowing officers to get double-pay working as security guards for Gottchalks department store while they were waiting to testify in court.

One, the other, or both, led to Britton’s firing in 1977.

He knew nothing about a bunker full of explosives?

Ed Winchester retired from the Fresno police department in 2001 with a commendation from the City Council and a doughnut from a just-opened Krispy Kreme. Laughter ensued.

There was just one applicant to be his successor: Jerry Dyer.

The year before, Winchester was called before a Fresno County grand jury to answer questions about a break-in at a police bunker in which five teenagers stole blasting caps, military explosives, hand grenades and booby traps. It was enough to fill a pickup truck, well over 200 pounds of explosives, according to The Fresno Bee.

In his testimony, Winchester told the grand jury he hadn’t been aware that the bunker even existed.

According to reports at the time, Winchester admitted he wasn’t sure if the department had an inventory process at the bunker, which made it difficult to determine all of the explosives that had been stolen.

His deputy chief was arrested on drug charges

Jerry Dyer had been on the job just days when he was struck by scandal after it was discovered he had twice been accused of having had sex with an underage girl in the mid-1980s. According to a Fresno Bee story in 2001, the girl was 16 in 1985. Dyer was 26, married and working as a Fresno police officer.

Sex between an adult and a person younger than 18 is against the law in California and the incident was investigated by the Fresno Police Department’s Internal Affairs unit twice. Dyer was not charged with any criminal acts and the statute of limitations had expired by the early 2000s when he was hired as chief.

“I’m not going to sit here before you and confirm those things or deny those things,” Dyer told The Bee in 2001.

“All I can tell you is that the relationships that I have had outside of my marriage, when I was a young man, have been dealt with.... God’s forgiven me. My wife’s forgiven me. This department’s forgiven me and looked into a lot of things in my past.”

He again refused to comment on the matter when it resurfaced during his mayoral run in 2020.

In his role as police chief, Dyer found himself again under scrutiny in 2015 following the arrest of Keith Foster.

Foster was working under Dyer as a deputy chief when he was arrested (along with five co-conspirators) on federal drug charges, including conspiracy to distribute and/or possess with the intent to distribute oxycodone, heroin and marijuana. Foster and Dyer had been friends for decades, the chief said at the time.

In 2020, Dyer told The Bee he didn’t see any signs of Foster’s activities.

“I have spent a lot of time going back and looking and thinking about, was there a sign? Was there anything?” he said.

“And honest to God, I never saw anything that would cause me to believe that he was involved in criminal behavior.”