Who is SSPO and Sheriff/city special?

Is any body here sworn as an SSPO and a Sheriff's Deputy/City Special?

If so, what are the pro's and con's?

Just curious.

Im SSPO and Suffolk Deputy Sheriff. The only thing that I find is you can't do anything ooutside of the campus with your sspo, you'll need the Sheriff powers. I havent run into any problems.

We used to be SSPO, Deputy Sheriff and town special. We dumped the SSPO two years ago, as it was beginning to become a stumbling block, smoke screen for defense attorneys to use. State Colleges have their own statues that govern their police authority. SSPO is limited in comparison. SSPO is obviously better than nothing. We still have the Sheriff and town special. If you have an open campus you need something more than SSPO so you can be covered.

State schools can also get their authority from the board of trustees.

They give you a cool ID ~

The best thing I can tell you if you work at a school, something I had to do is, start reading case law. Young v BU is a good one.

We are SSPO as well as Suffolk and Middlesex Sheriffs. As far as pros and cons...not sure...we don't use any of them all that much!!!!!!!!

i'm curious why you need deputy "powers" at all....if a problem is off school property, how does it concern you ? why not call the local pd ? Redtargetarea, please explain how defense attorneys (aka: liars for hire) used SSPO as a smoke screen .,..?? Why do you need "something more than sspo to be covered" ?

Because a lot of schools have multiple offsite properties, and/or the campus is mixed in among the town....

Becker College comes to mind.....I'm sure there are MANY others...

Ditto. The normal citizen doesn't give a flying f*ck what color your car is or what your arm patch says when they need immediate help. You could be waering a CHP uniform in Boston and they'd flag your ass down. The only person who ends up caring that you didn't have actual legal authority to act is the guy summonsing your ass to federal court when you helped the citizen at his legal detriment.

Take this situation: While driving between two campus dorms a mile apart, you get flagged down by a woman pedestrian who was just mugged. She yells, "There the guy is running down the street, right there in the black shirt!" Hey under MA case law, if you chase him and he realizes it, you've just committed a 4th AMD seizure. When you end up tackling him what authority do you have? You want to rely on citizens arrest powers for the criminal motions and §1983 lawsuit claiming an unlawful arrest? Be my guest. Also, I'm sure someone here can find a staute or obscure case that might exolve a campus officer, but why not swear them as a deputy and remove the bulk of doubt and questions that would arise? Not only that, but the liability conciousness muni chiefs must pale in comparison to that of Trustee Boards.

I'm sure this thread will evolve into the usual gripes about sheriff powers--it comes down to the fact that powers given for extreme reactive situations should not be used for proactive enforcement. I didn't think this has been much of a problem, considering the relative lack of discussions concerning Campus PD's in the same vigor and fury as say, oh, a MassCops thread regarding Massachusetts deputy patrols.

BC has several campuses, including Brighton, Newton and Dover. We have to travel on the public ways to get from campus to campus, and if that "shit sandwich" falls in our lap, we are expected to eat it!!!

I'm not a defense attorney, but I certainly respect their role in the justice system. Some of them suck, no doubt...but if I'm ever waist deep in the shit, I'll take a defense attorney over a labor lawyer any day!

Because shit sandwiches come around fairly often and you are expected to deal with the situation until the designated authority shows up.

It also becomes an issue when you are dealing with a situation and the local authority does not show up to assume jurisdiction. Or after contacting the local authority to assume jurisdiction there is a considerable delay in their response +30 minutes when an arrest/report/mva could just be dealt.

It is easy to understand when the local department is busy with their own calls for service and have their own emergencies to deal with. However it can also be unreasonable on a campus officer's end to have a situation on your hands for an extended period of time when you can simply deal with it, book the body and move on. Extended time can build tensions between the parties involved and can worsen a potential situation.

There may have been a handful of times that we needed to use the Sheriff powers, detectives doing investigations out of the town we are sworn in, for example. It just extends your authority. State College authority, extends out to town special authority then deputy authority if we are really out of the way. Many have hit it very nicely by saying, we do not go looking to use this other authority but it is nice to tie the loose ends if you have something that happens out of the college. Many times, if we come upon it in the town and it is in our usual patrol area, we will handle it start to finish. It is nice to know if you are sitting at a light coming back from dinner/car wash/driving around, whatever, that you can legally act with no hesitation, no calling the town for permission, just do it, and depending on where you are in the town, call them for a heads up courtesy call, ask them for back up or tell them you are all set, sometimes they come sometimes they don't if you say you are all set. And when you do find something real as a result of the stop/encounter/detainment out of the college, it is solid legally.

I was and tired of hearing Mullins this Mullins that (SSPO drawback), when I hooked someone for OUI, when they were driving like a moron, and I stopped them. Any motor vehicle thing that went to court, our authority was being challenged if the arrest spawned from a civil infraction. Private colleges only primary option is SSPO, hey play the cards your dealt, we can not change it, but if you are a public institution use the authority you are granted by the statutes specific to state colleges, and dump the SSPO, and save whatever they are charging for a warrant fee.

from my own personal observation SSPO ( DOC ) gives very limited powers and Deputy status of course gives powers in that county.

in the handful of times i've been flagged down i always defer to the local authority.

would never let anyone get hurt of course. if i had to act it would be out of common decency and would have to let the legal cards fall where they may.

That's my point. You shouldn't have to let the legal cards fall where they may; a 30 second swearing in by a sheriff could prevent an attachment on your wages for the next ten years.

Are you kidding? I work in one of the most introverted departments in the state. We don't even do extra-jurisdictional road details.

Yes...yes...yes...when the NECOPS membership increases a bit, that is one of the issues we intend to focus on. I hope the other LE labor organizations support it, but only time will tell.

There's really not much more that I can add to this other than the fact that it is nice to see that some of our municpal counterparts realize that it's more of a practical need than some ploy to muscle in on their turf.

Thats not at all what we think! We do indeed think that the sheriffs try to muscle in with poorly trained wannabe diputies who did nothing more than make a campaign contribution and attend apart time academy! Don't confuse the responses here with that animosity!

From what I'm reading here the officers that are being sworn in are doing it to do THEIR job better! They are not trying to push someone else out of a job because they are not capable of passing a civil service exam!

Maybe my post was a bit vague but I didn't pick up any animosity from the responses whatsoever. I thought it was nice to see the municpal officers, in addition to the CPO's, make compelling points for being duly sworn.

No I was saying that about the animosity towards your average every day run of the mill diputy.

I dont have a problem with you having the deputy powers. Like Delta has said sometimes you walk into a shit sandwich!

I have mixed feelings about it. I suppose it depends on what county you are in, and how the SD is perceived. Being in WCSD territory, I would be concerned if our department went that route, because of the way Glodis is viewed. Is it really worth putting a wedge in your relationship with the city (that is touch and go as it is) in order to get cite books, or expanded arrest powers? I understand the issues on both sides, but with the massive layoffs our city is facing, anything that would appear scabbish at this point would only be counter-productive in the long run.