Location: Sheriff's Headquarters, 833 S. Akers St., Visalia

Incident Date: 12/20/18

City: Visalia

Posted by: Media Relations

Sheriff Mike Boudreaux honored nine employees during a special ceremony Dec. 20, 2018 for going above and beyond the call of duty. Lieutenants and civilian managers introduced each of them and explained why they were being honored.

“I get filled with pride each time a manager reads an employee’s story,” Sheriff Boudreaux said.

All of them received a certificate of Employee Recognition and the two dispatchers, Phillip Cox, III, and Melissa Lindsey, also received letters of commendation.

Employees honored include:

- Correctional Deputy David Berry – For outstanding work in detentions, including several drug finds which led to a wider investigation and arrests outside of the facility. 

- Correctional Deputy Ereka Navarrete – For courageous response after being attacked by an inmate in a use of force incident. 

- Correctional Sergeant Enrique Celaya – For assisting a citizen who was suffered from a severe seizure while at a jail facility.

- Captain's Secretary III Barbara Hardy – For putting in months of extra effort and overtime to complete two large projects for the Internal Affairs Unit.

- Sergeant John Chabrajez – For overall outstanding effort running the Personnel Unit.

- Emergency Dispatcher III Phillip Cox - Constant willingness to assist as needed and extra effort during a large scale Search and Rescue. 

Emergency Dispatcher II - Melissa Lindsey – For outstanding job dispatching during the Officer Involved Shooting in Orosi on May 3, 2018.

- Deputy Petra Cisneros – For diligence in searching inmates at the Visalia courthouse, stopping altercations and locating contraband. 

- Sergeant Jason Villarreal – For being an integral part of the Corrections Gang Unit by submitting serious criminal cases to the District Attorney’s Office. He supervises the Sheriff’s Emergency Response Team (SERT) and helps train detentions staff. 

- Deputy Petra Cisneros – For diligence in searching inmates at the Visalia courthouse, stopping altercations and locating contraband. 

- Sergeant Jason Villarreal – For being an integral part of the Corrections Gang Unit by submitting serious criminal cases to the District Attorney’s Office. He supervises the Sheriff’s Emergency Response Team (SERT) and helps train detentions staff.