Useless Agency

Since your post sounds highly suspicious to me, would you be kind enough to answer a few follow-up questions? Under whose authority do you conduct traffic stops outside of your jurisdiction for non-criminal civil infractions? And what S.O. is allowing their Deputies to issue uniform traffic citations for civil infractions that they did not observe based on your observations? What judicial circuit do you work in and who are the state attorney and clerk of courts that is allowing these citations to go through?

What you mean is you could stop then if they are a "DUI" and you feel if you dont then you could put someone in danger. And you call the jurisdiction and get them enroute as soon as possible and only stop them if you have to, I have seen that done.

Someone needs to read their statute book a little more often. Another officer can write a citation based on a sworn officers testimony/witness. Look it up. Hey, that book is given to you to cover your @#$@! Use it, look at it, pray with it if you need to, don't short change yourself.

Respectfully submitted,

Statute

With equal respect to you, I read the book... again. When I could find nothing in it to support your view, I contacted the State Attorney in my jurisdiction and I posed the precise hypothetical situation we are discussing. According to him, you are mistake. A police officer is not entitled to conduct traffic stops for civil traffic infractions he witnesses outside of his jurisdiction. If he does conduct such a stop, an officer having jurisdiction where the violation occured may not issue a civil infraction citation based on the other officers observation. An exception would be an officer acting with in the scope of mutual aid activity covered under a mutual aid agreement, for example, a multi-jursdictional DUI enforcement campaign. I think you're thinking of the "fellow officer rule" which does not apply to civil infractions that occur in your presence outside of your jurisdiction. If you still insist that you are correct, please tell me where you work and where you live so I can arrange to commit such a violation in front of you. Hopefully you will stop me and have your other officer friend issue me a citation which I can then get arrested for for refusing to sign. I can already smell the money from the settlement.

At the moment all I can verify is a mutual aide agreement, for traffic or dui or whatever. Gives an officer that power. The officer being dual sworn in that county. The officer stopping a "suspected" DUI "breach of the peace" outside his jurisdiction. All those are valid but I have heard of the above postings happening.

A Sheriff has the authority to vest municipal officers with county wide jurisdiction. Sheriffs are reluctant to do that because of the liability issue. A municipal officer so vested who screws up while exercising that authority outside of his own agencey's jurisdication would fall under the Sheriff’s umbrella, not his own agency’s. I’m not saying that there aren’t circumstances where we can justify conducting stops for a violation outside of our jurisdictions. I’m just saying that we need to make sure that the circumstances are serious enough to risk sticking our necks out. Felonies and serious misdemeanors might make the grade, and I don’t think many any SA’s or Judges would fault us for trying to hold down the fort until the troops with jurisdiction arrived to take over. But civil traffic infractions aren’t worth it. We’ve got nothing to cover us if something goes bad. Think of it this way. You stop a car for running a stop sign outside of your jurisdiction. You approach the driver and ask for his driver’s license. He looks at your uniform and sees that you’re outside of your jurisdiction. He flips you off, tells you to pound sand, and casually drives away. Now what? Are you going to start a pursuit or drive home with egg on your face? There isn’t a third option. I’m not an ambulance chase. I’m just a cop and an academy instructor who has seen too many basically good guys lose their careers because they didn’t pick their battles and weigh the risks before acting.

You see, this website forum can be used for positive outcomes. Good job people!