FROM SHERIFF TO CHIEF TO DIRECTOR

 

Distinguishing hidden agendas from unintended consequences is often a matter of opinion that merely reflects what the observer wants to believe.  Examining the steady loss of freedoms in our great nation often reveals motives and players we had not formerly considered.  I leave it to you to consider the following account of the evolution of Law Enforcement in the United States over the past century.  Keep it in the context of other changes during this period: changing the election of US Senators from State defenders to national special-interest defenders; authorizing the federal government to lay unlimited incomer taxes; and the emergence of environmental/animal rights/socialist interest groups exerting national political control.  Whether a diabolical hidden agenda or simply an unintended consequence, the evolution of Law Enforcement in the US is an element in this scenario to be concerned about.

 

During the Middle Ages in England and in Colonial America, sheriffs were the primary enforcers of THE LAW.  Robin Hood’s nemesis and the usurper King’s enforcer was the Sheriff of Nottingham.  Colonial Sheriffs in the American Colonies of Britain were appointed by the Governor of the Colony and did his (i.e. the Governor’s) bidding on behalf of the King and Parliament.  One does not have to be a graduate of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Academy to comprehend that a Colonial Sheriff was someone to be feared and a guy whose pay and career opportunities depended not on pleasing the community but rather on pleasing the Governor and the King.  Needless to say that when we established this nation, the need for a sheriff seemed self-evident but who they would answer to, was open to question.

 

Even before the Constitution was ratified, States (the former 13 colonies) had elected Governors and other officials including Sheriffs.  Sheriffs tended to be elected under the conditions set forth in each State’s Constitution.  As Counties were established and urban areas were organized politically, the election of THEIR OWN Sheriff, was considered just one of the many grand advancements of this new Republic.  Think of it: a Sheriff elected BY OUR COMMUNITY to keep US safe.  During the first century of the nation, this concept of Local Communities like Counties electing or getting rid of their own Sheriff worked as well as any human endeavor can.  While there were always scandals and corruption: Local accountability and oversight was always more direct, immediate and responsive than at the State Level and certainly far greater than at the central government or federal level.

 

As the country expanded, new Territories that would become states needed law enforcement and thus was born the role of US Marshals.  They were legendary as “Peace Officers” under some of the most unruly periods in the nation’s history. They were appointed by judges or federal politicians and operated with, not independent of, Sheriffs as they were elected.  As each State      came on line, Sheriffs shortly replaced US Marshals in law enforcement duties.

 

Cities were the first places to challenge the role of Sheriffs.  Powerful, elected Sheriffs were seen as competitors by elected Mayors.  Mayors often fought with Sheriffs over who was over who and who would do what.  Thus was born the role of City Police Departments and the practice of Mayors APPOINTING The Police Chief.  As this evolved and City Police Departments became more powerful, Sheriffs in those urban enclaves became less powerful.  As the Mayors controlled the Police, such things as police oversight of corruption or cronyism became more and more rare.  Sheriffs, while still elected, became jailers and officers of courts and prisoner transporters.  Police Chiefs, while coveting the aura of independent and accountable Sheriffs became little more than appointees of Mayors or hacks.  One need look no further today that the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and their love affair with every gun control scheme to come down the pike.  Like the Washington, DC Chief and her “please give us consent to search your home for guns” scheme, urban mayors have used guns as the scapegoat for crime and if any Police Chief diverges from that mantra, they are history.  The urban Police Chiefs control the IACP, therefore the “experts”, the successors to Sheriffs; support destroying the 2^nd Amendment rights of all Americans.

 

Up until the “Roaring Twenties” and “Prohibition” Marshals were the federal enforcement officers for the very Constitutionally-limited federal body of laws.  Migratory Bird authority at the end of WWI emerged and a bevy of Federal Game Wardens were employed in the USDA.  The Internal Revenue Service grew with the growth of the Federal Income Tax and was responsible for getting Al Capone imprisoned for “tax evasion”.  J Edgar and his men chased down Dillinger and Baby-Face Floyd and all the other notorious robbers.  The expansion of National Forests and National Wildlife Refuges and National Parks meant more and more rural land that DID NOT PAY LOCAL TAXES so the Sheriffs asked how they could do the same or more enforcement when Uncle Sam was lowering the tax base so dramatically.  The federal government bureaucrats jumped with glee.  Today, we have Secrets Service Agents and Secret Service Uniformed; FBI, IRS, FWS, NPS, USFS, BLM, USACoE, Customs, Homeland Security, INS, CIA, DOD, NMFS, etc., etc. agents and uniformed and part-time federal enforcement officers.  They are usually under DIRECTORS and they encompass hundreds of thousands of employees and billions and billions of annual funding.

 

Funny thing: as the federal law enforcement force expanded (just like urban Police Departments) Marshals (like Sheriffs) became jailers and officers of court and prisoner transporters.

 

Federal enforcement agencies do just what every federal agency does.  They generate reams of justification for MORE people and MORE money for MORE responsibilities.  They argue for better pensions (higher percentages and lower years of service) and they “draft” ever more restrictive regulations to make their job easier regardless of their effect on the citizenry (this is because they are really unaccountable and they get away with things like seizing property for their own use and pushing gun control).  An example of their unaccountability is the widespread Washington “secret” that billions of Homeland Security “contracts” go to and are controlled by retired Secret Service agents who in turn employ other retired Secret Service agents.  I told this to someone the other day that asked me why “the government” lets this go on?   Simple, I said, who is the government but federal employees approaching retirement and who do you think wants to get hired then?  It is called “double-dipping” and Washington, DC is awash in it.

 

Remember all this when you wonder how could a law like the Endangered Species Act be passed?  How can anyone charge you with a felony (prison, no-vote anymore, and no-gun anymore) for killing a wolf or grizzly making you fear for your life or the life of a loved one or your property?  How can they make me give up use of my property without compensation? 

 

Most Marshals have never known the role they played for the first century of the nation.  More and more Sheriffs think of themselves and their Deputies and their role as less important than the Police and certainly insignificant when compared with FEDERAL OFFICERS.  Police tend to treat Sheriffs and their Deputies as lesser officers.  Federal officers from the tiniest National Park to the Secret Service Director think of Sheriffs and Marshals as little more than someone to send for coffee.

 

Finally, consider what has disappeared: 

Local election and accountability for the people that enforce our laws.

Local input into what will be legal and illegal IN OUR COMMUNITY.

Familiarity with enforcers that live in your community.

Durable, people and business-friendly communities under sensible laws.

 

Consider what has replaced it:

Political control of Police Chiefs.

Laws written and enforced by ever-more remote and unaccountable bureaucracies.

Laws that forbid guns and close public lands.

Faceless enforcers that are trained to treat you not as a neighbor but as a target.

Central government law enforcement just like medieval England and Colonial America.

 

Here we are, back where we started from over 200 years ago.  Unintended consequence or hidden agenda?  I leave that to you. 

 

I for one suggest we trim back the pomposity and roles of Police Chiefs and federal Directors and rediscover elected Sheriffs for domestic law enforcement.  Letting each County elect a Sheriff who is then THE HEAD LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER FOR THAT JURISDICTION is neither radical or difficult, just a well-proven development from the birth of our nation.

 

Placing all these federal resource agency law enforcers (NPS, USFS, FWS, BLM, NMFS, ETC.) in Interior, Commerce, and Agriculture under the US Marshals would be another move well worth considering.  Changing these Police Chiefs and federal agency Directors from law enforcement dictators (the proper term) to law enforcement cooperators is in everyone’s best interests (including the enforcers because they are citizens too.)

 

Ben Franklin must have had all this in mind when he observed that those who would trade freedoms for security deserve neither.  We have done just that.  Like The Founding Fathers we must break that pact and restore the freedoms we have traded away for a very thin gruel.

 

Jim Beers

13 April 2008

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- Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow.  He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC.  He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands.  He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC.  He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority.  He resides in Centreville, Virginia with his wife of many decades.