Police protection across city lines
As today's editorial notes, Guilford County's law-enforcement agencies watch each others' backs.
Their mutual-aid agreements work well, thanks to the unified Guilford 911 system. Dispatchers, who monitor the location of every police and emergency services vehicle in the county at all times, can send officers from one department into another jurisdiction when the need arises.
This is a good One Guilford principle in action. If you're in a crisis, you want the nearest officer to respond. Whether he or she works for the county, for Greensboro or for High Point doesn't matter so much. They're all there to serve the public.
That said, the local agency maintains primary responsibility for its own territory. Each agency is supposed to have sufficient manpower to properly cover its jurisdiction without assistance from others too often.
Greensboro's planned annexation of the Cardinal area will put police resources, already stretched thin at times, to the test. So it was interesting to find out that Chief Tim Bellamy and Sheriff BJ Barnes have been talking about an arrangement that would have the sheriff's office continue to provide police coverage there after annexation.
There's logic to the idea. While the city gains the 3,300 acres and 8,800 residents, the county loses all that from its law-enforcement responsibility (although, technically, the sheriff has law-enforcement jurisdiction everywhere in the county). The point is that the sheriff already has the manpower to cover the area; the city doesn't, at least not yet.
Apparently there are some potential holdups. One has to do with paperwork. The city is required to report crime data in its territory, and that could be skewed if the sheriff is administering the area. That seems like a minor problem. More seriously, there's the issue of followup. Sheriff's deputies could patrol the area and respond to calls, but would police need to pick up long-term criminal investigations? Would there be complications when handing off cases from one agency to another?
Then I suppose the city and county would have to work out what level of policing the city would require and how much it would pay for it. And what about accountability? The city council ultimately is accountable for police services in the city, but whom would Cardinal residents hold accountable for their police service if it's actually provided by the sheriff? Of course, they vote for the sheriff like other county residents, so maybe they'd feel they could hold him accountable.
Interesting issue to watch.
Comments (7)
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Another suggestion, and I realize it's a silly one, is that the City Council could spend money to fund the 85-100 police officers needed to bring GPD up to strength instead of sending more taxpayer $$$ to Skip and Earl's Moneypit on Elm Street, aka The Civil Rights Museum.
I realize it's stupid to suggest the Council actually act in a fiscally responsible manner. After all, why annex all that new area and get that expanded tax base if you can't spend the new money to pacify the black racist leaders in our community? I mean, gee...police service only involves life and death, but look at all the votes they can buy if they invest our tax money wisely on racial harmony.
Posted on December 4, 2007 11:07 AM
Not that I want to go off in this direction, but ...
The city ought to have a Greensboro Sit-in Museum. It could be a real attraction.
Posted on December 4, 2007 11:14 AM
I see no reason why Greensboro can't have both... Except perhaps something going on in City Hall that can only thrive in a city with a weak and understaffed police department.
Posted on December 4, 2007 1:19 PM
I don't think you will find many taxpayers in Greensboro who disagree with having the Civil Rights Museum in Greensboro but the majority of the taxpayers do not want their tax money used to build it or support it. It is time for the supporters of the Civil Rights Museum to figure out a way to build it without coming back to the taxpayers with their hand out over and over again.
Posted on December 4, 2007 6:11 PM
This is a very misleading editorial. Guilford 911 has no authority to dispatch High Point and Greensboro Police outside their jurisdictions. The Guilford County sheriff can answer calls county wide but the two other Departments are limited to their jurisdictions. Mutual aid agreements only authorizes law enforcement agencies to assist each other during natural or man-made disasters and other incidents requiring services beyond the capacity of a single agency. Mutual aid agreements are limited in their time and scope. There would be more than technical issues involving paperwork with the sheriff handling the newly annexed area. There is a question of legality. The annexation laws clearly spell out the responsibilities of the annexing city and contracting law enforcement does not seem to be included. The city must provide for "extending police protection, fire protection, solid waste collection and street maintenance services to the area to be annexed on the date of annexation on substantially the same basis and in the same manner as such services are provided within the rest of the municipality prior to annexation. A contract with a rural fire department to provide fire protection shall be an acceptable method of providing fire protection. If a water distribution system is not available in the area to be annexed, the plans must call for reasonably effective fire protection services until such time as waterlines are made available in such area under existing municipal policies for the extension of waterlines. A contract with a private firm to provide solid waste collection services shall be an acceptable method of providing solid waste collection services". There is no mention in the law of contracting law enforcement services. The above section in quotation marks comes directly from the NC General Statutes.
Posted on December 5, 2007 8:03 AM
Anthony, someone must think it's allowed because it's happening -- not on a daily basis but apparently with some regularity.
If contracting law enforcement in annexed areas isn't allowed, why are city and county officials even talking about it?
Posted on December 5, 2007 8:55 AM
Police officers in NC also have a one-mile extraterritorial jurisdiction by statute:
§ 160A‑286. Extraterritorial jurisdiction of policemen.
In addition to their authority within the corporate limits, city policemen shall have all the powers invested in law‑enforcement officers by statute or common law within one mile of the corporate limits of the city, and on all property owned by or leased to the city wherever located.
Any officer pursuing an offender outside the corporate limits or extraterritorial jurisdiction of the city shall be entitled to all of the privileges, immunities, and benefits to which he would be entitled if acting within the city, including coverage under the workers' compensation laws. (1971, c. 698, s. 1; c. 896, s. 4; 1973, c. 426, s. 46; c. 1286, s. 24; 1991, c. 636, s. 3.)
Posted on December 5, 2007 12:51 PM