This is UNREAL!
Jefferson County Sheriff Mike Hale has begged Governor Riley to either fork over the cash to fund his bloated department or send in National Guard troops to serve as deputies.
"If state funding of deputies' salaries is not an option, then I must call upon you to activate the National Guard..." Hale wrote in the letter to Riley.
Mike Hale is out of his mind. I'm no legal scholar...but I believe Posse Comitatus would prevent that. Jefferson County is still part of the United States right?
Hale is worried that he won't be able to arrest and imprison his portion of the 2.6% of Alabama marijuana consumers arrested annually because of these budget cuts. He doesn't need to arrest them and maybe not being able to arrest them will make him aware of that. With the murder rate in Jefferson County one of the highest in the nation you'd think he wouldn't have time to do the street sweeps where 50 street corner dealers are hauled in.
UPDATE: Brian from Flashpoint just sent the following....
Only applies to National Guard when under federal control. It does not apply when the NG is under control of the governor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act
Putting troops on the streets is a phenomenally bad idea. Many of these men and women are just back from tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, they are suffering from PTSD and do not need to be put in charge of civilian law enforcement. They haven't been trained as Sheriff deputies. If this happens I will predict that things will go very, very badly.
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1 day ago
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This better not happen...I don't want to live like the many men, women, and children overseas nor do I want my children to live this way. This is not an option for our "free" country. He will just have to figure out how to operate with less officials.
I remember during the WTO riots here in Seattle in 1999, WA State National Guard Troops *assisted* county deputies and city police in trying to restore order. But they were only given night sticks, not even lethal weapons or the non-lethal weapons the regular cops were using. Having national guard do policing should be only in serious emergencies it seems like. When it comes to govt, there's always something that can be cut and i'm sure even knowning nothing of Jefferson County, AL govt that they probably have something that they can cut to help pay for deputies' salaries. Maybe city worker salaries, including his own? A govt program that might be nice on some group but can't take a back seat to policing.
Kent State?
Posse Comitatus-what? Whatever that is, it's obviously pre-9/11 thinking.
We've got terrorism to worry about today, terrorism funded by dope smokers.
dope smoking terrorist? Truly the end of days are upon us all.
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