The Alameda County Sheriff's Office Dive Team is a volunteer organization made up of volunteers devoted to providing a professional level of diving services to all police agencies within Alameda County, for the purpose of underwater search and recovery of drowning victims or evidence of crimes. In addition, the unit provides water rescue standbys for several large water-related functions. These services are available to other counties within California through the Law Enforcement Mutual Aid System.

The unit has been in existence since the mid-1950's and is proud of being one of the oldest and most experienced public safety volunteer dive unit in California. Our role is to serve the public, recovering evidence for criminal investigations, searching for drowning and homicide victims, or verifying that no such items exist in an underwater region.

Since our dives are usually done in cold water with little or no visibility and a high probability of entanglement, we perform extensive training to make sure our activities are as safe and effective as possible. Our unit employs state-of-the-art search and recovery techniques, and all members are expected to attain a high degree of proficiency using these techniques.

This website provides resources for dive team members, and provides information to individuals and organizations interested in our activities.

About Public Safety Diving

Public Safety Diving involves an objective: the recovery of a victim, or an auto, a weapon or to verify the abscence of an object. We are on call 24 x 7, 365 days a year and operations can occur in any water environment in Alameda County - the bay, lakes, reservoirs, estuarys, etc. All of our dive operations use tender-directed tethered diving techniques performing highly technical skilled activities in limited visibility and black water environments.

A Volunteer Organization

All members of the Dive Team are volunteers. While we come from various walks of life with various skills and abilities, we are joined in the dedication to providing service to the community at large. We provide closure to families and bring resolution to many situations. Our members include a high percentage of divemasters and instructors but that is not a requirement to join the team. We use state of the art equipment provided through the Alameda County Sheriff's Office of Emergency Services. Volunteers are expected to attend monthly meetings, trainings and when applicable, to call outs. For information about joining the Dive Team as well as our requirements, please follow the link to the left under "Join".