The below was from a meeting held on Feb. 21 2008. Their was a meeting held to discuss HB 466 for the Sheriff’s and Deputies to be Law Enforcement Officers. Here is Testimony from Rep. Kula responding to one of Tom Caltagirone’s special interest groups which is Pennsylvania State Police Lieutenant Colonel Pawlowski who’s intentions was to sink this Bill, which they did. Again I am not attacking all of PSP they do work hard but their are not many Troopers to spread around this state. They (PSP) must stop from being territorial. I mean really, let’s go after the bad guys, I get this feeling that somehow the Sheriff’s and Deputies are being missrepresented here. Their are plenty of bad guys out there, enough for everyone and I don’t think the Sheriff’s and Deputies will take any work away from the PSP. Let’s work together, give the Sheriff’s and Deputies Law Enforcement title which is long over due.
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
IRVIS OFFICE BUILDING
ROOM G-50
HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2008 10:04 A.M.
REPRESENTATIVE KULA: Thank you,Mr. Chairman, and I thank you for your testimony, Lieutenant Colonel. I have couple of questions and maybe as well as a statement. My area covers Fayette County which is where the Uniontown State Police barracks is located, and I’m sure you can attest to the fact that the Uniontown State Police barracks is the busiest barracks within the Commonwealth as far as crime. Not that that is a great thing for Fayette County, but I can tell you — it has come a long way and we’re very proud of the accomplishments we’ve made. But I — your question was when someone calls for a burglary, that your home is being burglarized, who responds? Now, the township that I represented as a magisterial district judge had no local police officers. So obviously State Police handled that. So if there was no local police, obviously the State Police would respond. What would happen if there was local police if someone called the State Police? LT. COLONEL PAWLOWSKI: If there were local police –REPRESENTATIVE KULA: Yes. LT. COLONEL PAWLOWSKI: — there? The local police, if they were on duty, would respond because they’d retain primary jurisdiction of the call. REPRESENTATIVE KULA: So that call would be made to 911 I would assume. Probably. Okay. LT. COLONEL PAWLOWSKI: Possibly.
REPRESENTATIVE KULA: So it seems then that that could be covered by the 911 dispatchers as to whether there’s a local police, there’s not a local police, in coordination with the State Police as to
during certain hours who would be contacted to cover that particular area. I can tell you, as a district judge, I would have complaints from people coming into the office and indicating that they had
called, the State Police were contacted, and no — I am not in any way degrading the State Police because I know the tough job that they do — but the time that would –that elapsed until that response was made by the State Police, because there just are not enough to cover every minute of the day and not knowing what type of crimes are going to be committed. So it seems that — and we have sat
in this Judiciary Committee — I’ve been here over a year now — and listened to the problems throughout the Commonwealth of there not being enough police officers on the street, that we are lacking the presence of police to help to deter the amounts of crimes that are being committed. And it seems to me that this legislation would certainly help to put the police presence out on the street. We also have been very active in expanding the scope of practice in many parts of the medical profession. Because we — and That these are people that are trained to do something, and we are not using that training
to the best of their ability and to all areas that we should. And this seems to be another area that we have people trained, we have people out there that can help protect this Commonwealth, but we are not using — utilizing those officers to be able to use that training to do what we need to do. I mean are the State Police — are you — is your testimony here today specifically in opposition to this legislation?
LT. COLONEL PAWLOWSKI: Yes.