Re: Uvalde School shooting
Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2022 9:21 pm
To clarify and answer the questions my post generated, you have to understand the difference between jurisdiction and authority, especially command authority. Jurisdiction is a combination of where you have legal authority to act and where you are employed. All peace officers in Texas are commissioned by Texas and have general jurisdiction to make an arrest anywhere in the state. There is one section of law that restricts the authority of county and municipal officers to the county that they are commissioned in. So, for example a Luling PD officer may write a ticket anywhere in Guadalupe or Caldwell Counties because his city is in both those counties, but he may make any other type of arrest anywhere in the state.
That means that DPS and Texas Rangers did have legal jurisdiction to act in the school shooting.
But then we have the question of what command authority they have. Can they simply walk in and tell a Uvalde CISD officer that they are now in charge and he must obey them? There is nothing in the law giving them any such command authority. They probably could have done this and the officers would not have argued about it too much, because no one knew what was going on in that situation and most of the officers were (IMO) looking for someone to do this anyway. In most cases, if an officer does this in other cases, the police officer will yield because he is too professional to argue on the scene and because cops are notoriously shy of taking authority. There is an old saying that you can't get fired if you do nothing (not always true but a decent rule of thumb for a lot of departments). But if the officer is old/salty or wants to do something his way, he could tell the DPS trooper to get out of his crime scene and would be 100% legally justified.
But that now gets us to the question of the county Sheriff. We used to have a law (clause in the Constitution) saying that the Sheriff is the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of a county. I cannot find this law now, though I still find a reference to it on the Grayson County Sheriff's Office web page. One reason I might not have found it is that our Constitution is organized fairly strangely, listing the sheriff as part of the judicial branch of government. But even if it is still in effect, there would be the legal question of exactly what this means. When I first entered Texas law enforcement, I was taught it mean almost exactly what you would think and that the Sheriff could stop other agencies from working in his county. But this cannot possibly be true because the Constable is also a position created by the Constitution, so could a Sheriff overrule the Constitution? Could a Sheriff tell Luling that they could not have a police department if Luling is in two counties?
While it was Florida (I think) and not Texas, we recently had a video making the rounds where a city police officer and a county Sheriff were each threatening to arrest the other for interfering in their cases.
Now, please consider if we really want to have a law saying who can take over or not. When we have a real cluster going on, and no one seems to be making a decision or taking action, this might be a very desirable thing. But what if we have an incident going on and the town officers are handling it properly and a DPS trooper shows up and knows nothing of what is going on but wants to take charge because he can? And we all know there are too many officers who are strictly politicians who would do it for the opportunities it might have to enhance their career. And this does not take into account what would happen when the local chief says to his men to let the person take charge and clear the scene. He is the guy who signs their checks and they have departmental rules saying his order will be obeyed. This could make a bad situation much worse very quickly.
The bright side of this is that most cops are professionals and will work with each other. Our system is designed to be applied using common sense. Most of the times it works out well. But when it does fail, it fails spectacularly and may (in this case did) cost innocent people's lives.
That means that DPS and Texas Rangers did have legal jurisdiction to act in the school shooting.
But then we have the question of what command authority they have. Can they simply walk in and tell a Uvalde CISD officer that they are now in charge and he must obey them? There is nothing in the law giving them any such command authority. They probably could have done this and the officers would not have argued about it too much, because no one knew what was going on in that situation and most of the officers were (IMO) looking for someone to do this anyway. In most cases, if an officer does this in other cases, the police officer will yield because he is too professional to argue on the scene and because cops are notoriously shy of taking authority. There is an old saying that you can't get fired if you do nothing (not always true but a decent rule of thumb for a lot of departments). But if the officer is old/salty or wants to do something his way, he could tell the DPS trooper to get out of his crime scene and would be 100% legally justified.
But that now gets us to the question of the county Sheriff. We used to have a law (clause in the Constitution) saying that the Sheriff is the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of a county. I cannot find this law now, though I still find a reference to it on the Grayson County Sheriff's Office web page. One reason I might not have found it is that our Constitution is organized fairly strangely, listing the sheriff as part of the judicial branch of government. But even if it is still in effect, there would be the legal question of exactly what this means. When I first entered Texas law enforcement, I was taught it mean almost exactly what you would think and that the Sheriff could stop other agencies from working in his county. But this cannot possibly be true because the Constable is also a position created by the Constitution, so could a Sheriff overrule the Constitution? Could a Sheriff tell Luling that they could not have a police department if Luling is in two counties?
While it was Florida (I think) and not Texas, we recently had a video making the rounds where a city police officer and a county Sheriff were each threatening to arrest the other for interfering in their cases.
Now, please consider if we really want to have a law saying who can take over or not. When we have a real cluster going on, and no one seems to be making a decision or taking action, this might be a very desirable thing. But what if we have an incident going on and the town officers are handling it properly and a DPS trooper shows up and knows nothing of what is going on but wants to take charge because he can? And we all know there are too many officers who are strictly politicians who would do it for the opportunities it might have to enhance their career. And this does not take into account what would happen when the local chief says to his men to let the person take charge and clear the scene. He is the guy who signs their checks and they have departmental rules saying his order will be obeyed. This could make a bad situation much worse very quickly.
The bright side of this is that most cops are professionals and will work with each other. Our system is designed to be applied using common sense. Most of the times it works out well. But when it does fail, it fails spectacularly and may (in this case did) cost innocent people's lives.