The below was from the House Judiciary Committee public hearing on law enforcement powers for Sheriffs which was House Bill 466 which was from February 21 2008. As we all know this House Bill was one of many that never was sent to Legislation to be voted on.
REPRESENTATIVE PICKETT:
Mr. Chairman.
The — the situation is different inmy county. It’s not the same as it was. And the opportunities that we had to use this manpower has been diminished. I’ll put my business hat on for just a minute. In brief, I had a business that was on one side of the Susquehanna River bridge in a township and the borough on the other side of the Susquehanna River bridge has a police force. And I have a great respect for that chief of police and his staff there. They’re good people. They do everything they can do. But guess what? They can’t cross the bridge. And so when I had an incident in my business. And I was there for many years and I certainly had incidents. We had — we had a tavern. We had a — a full hotel. We had a restaurant. And I had incidents. And many times I had to put on my own sort of sheriff’s badge. I do have one my grandfather had years ago. And I had to take care of that situation, just because the State Police were so far away. No fault of theirs, but they were someplace. I had an incident right now and that chief of police and his staff cannot cross that bridge even though it’s probably — I don’t know if there’s some of the golfers in here, they might be able to cross that bridge with a golf ball. So that was — that’s the reality of what goes on in the field and why I feel we need to use this manpower.
Thank you