A crime happens in an exclave. What law enforcement responds?

Factual Questions
1

I was reading with interest about the Kentucky Bend, which is a small area of Kentucky that is completely surrounded by Missouri and Tennessee. According to Wikipedia, it only has a population of 17 people. I found it interesting that although the area is in Kentucky, it’s mailing address is Tiptonville, TN.

So as far as the Post Office is concerned, problem solved. But what about other governmental services. What would happen if some nutjob showed up in the Kentucky bend area and started breaking into homes and torturing and/or killing the occupants. One of those 17 people call 911. Who responds?

It would make the most logistical sense for law enforcement in Tennessee to respond, but why would they get involved since it’s an entirely different state. Does the Kentucky State Police or the Fulton County Sheriff go screaming through Tennessee all the way from the main part of Kentucky?

Another exclave that comes to mind is a small part of Chambers County, TX that extends from the rest of Chambers County down to the Gulf of Mexico. Although not technically an exclave, the only way to get there from the rest of Chambers County is to go slogging through about 15 miles of marsh. The only thing there is about a mile long stretch of shitty beach that is only accessible from Galveston County. Although it’s a crappy beach it is very isolated, which makes it attractive to beach-goers who are not necessarily model citizens. It’s been about 20 years since I’ve been there, but I doubt things have changed much.

Ok, so a murder happens on the small stretch of beach that’s in Chambers County. Who investigates? What law enforcement agency responds. Does the Chambers County sheriff have to come blazing down all the way from Winnie, TX, or could the Galveston County sheriff respond from Bolivar Peninsula – a much closer distance?

What about international exclaves, like Point Roberts, WA or the Northwest Angle?

2

Police can travel through different states just like anyone else can. They can’t generally exercise police powers in anything but their own state. In the case of an enclave, the relevant police just have to drive to the borders of the enclave and then it is the same as anywhere else they have jurisdiction over. It isn’t an issue of geography. It is matter of legal jurisdiction.

3

Before he died my father lived on land leased from an Indian tribe. A call to 911 meant that sometimes both county and reservation paramedics showed up. So I guess “it depends” is the best answer.

4

Police can travel through different states, but it’s often impractical to do so when rivers or other natural borders are involved. I’ve wondered about this for some of the bits of NM that are on the El Paso TX side of the Rio Grande. The delay is not huge, but it’s something I’d think hard about before buying a house there.

5

At various times, communities along the Quebec-New York border have had to hammer out arrangements to deal with emergency calls in cases where it’s much easier, or only feasible, to get help from the other side of the border.

6

According to this article about law enforcement in a small town on the Ohio-Indiana border, sheriff’s deputies in the county in Ohio have authority in Indiana as well. Depending on the states’ laws, I’d think that would be an option in some places.

ETA: Colorado City, Arizona and Hildale, Utah used to have a single law enforcement agency. The officers were all certified in both states.

None of the places I mentioned are exclaves, but the principle is the same.

7

Just a WAG here, but plausible: Small communities commonly don’t have their own police departments, but instead contract with the county for the services of the county sheriffs department.

So it’s not beyond imagination that the same could happen even across county lines or across state lines. The county of which the small enclave is part, could contract with the county that can more easily provide the services, to provide law enforcement and any other common municipal services.

8

It’s not an exclave, but I believe that WMATA (Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority) police have jursidiction in Washington, DC, Maryland, and Virginia at least with respect to offenses committed on WMATA trains or buses or within X feet of a station. Trains travel from Virginia, through DC, into Maryland, and back several times a day.

9

Also not an exclave, but Port Authority police officers have jurisdiction in both New York and New Jersey. While it’s true that police officers have a specific jurisdiction, it’s also true that the jurisdiction doesn’t need to be limited to a single state and that officers employed by one agency can become deputized officers in another.

10

The village Büsingen is a German exclave in Switzerland, just behind the German-Swiss border.

Uniformed German police officers have to use a predesignated road when they are called in from Germany. They are not allowed to exercise official duties while on transit through Swiss territory. Only a certain number of German uniformed police officers are allowed to be present in Büsingen at any given moment.

Swiss police has jurisdiction over certain matters (customs, agriculture, health inspection etc.), they are allowed to make arrests in Büsingen. No more than 10 uniformed Swiss police officers are allowed to be present at any given moment.

11

This is a two-part question, and the parts have been addressed above and just need to be put together.

No areas in the U.S. exist in a lawless, ownerless bubble. Each state maintains control and law over every area in its borders. That control is delegated downward in a series of precisely defined steps. Counties are the next level, though Lousiana has parishes and Virginia independent cities, and so do a couple of other states. Within a county the subdivisions are more individualistic, including cities, towns, villages, townships, and unincorporated areas depending on the state. Most larger concentrations of population are incorporated: they have a state charter spelling out the legal structure of the place. (That’s why around here the city lawyer is known as the Corporation Counsel.) In New York State, villages can sit inside towns inside counties, but each level has a structure for all legal operations that everyone can refer to. (I won’t get into Indian territories or federal jurisdiction or other albeit interesting complications.)

What this means is that everyone who lives everywhere in a state has a place. They vote, they pay taxes, they receive services. And they from the bottom up and the state from the top down can slot every single person person, place, and thing into its proper position in a legal sense.

Once the legal place is locked down, the practical considerations of providing those services can begin. Those can be contracted, outsourced, shared, reciprocated, or provided directly. None of it is done randomly. Legal agreements of many types are in place that spell out who is to do what when under which circumstances. This can get complicated, people can and do disagree what falls under the agreements, emergency response may require that an agreement is temporarily breached. But everything flows upward. Sooner or later, usually sooner, the higher level of legal authority asserts itself and starts making decisions, even if those are only to pass it along to someone else.

So not only is there always somebody officially in charge, there is always a specified legal hierarchy of who is in charge, all the way up to the feds. Believe me, people in government spend a lot of time thinking about this. They’ve seen zillions of cases because there are zillions of borders in this weirdly parceled out country and something happens across jurisdictional lines every minute of every day. It doesn’t require the oddity of an enclave. Every time you drive from a city to a suburb or to a new suburb or across a bridge into another state you’re shifting across a zillion varying laws. It’s everyday life.

12

This kind of thing happens all over the place on various jurisdictional levels. In EMS/Fire circles these are referred to as mutual aid or instant aid agreements.

In my home city of Fresno, we have “islands” of County of Fresno scattered around town that are totally surrounded by City of Fresno and or City of Clovis.

Generally those pockets are served by the Fresno County sherrif office and Fresno County Fire. However if someone starts shooting up the neighborhood, Fresno PD will respond and if a big fire gets going county fire will regularly request assistance from Fresno fire stations.

13

Llivia is a tiny Spanish enclave in France. It’s very close to the Spanish town of Puigcerdá, from which its police needs are served.

14

I’m surprised no one has mentioned Kowloon Walled City. It was an enclave of PRC territory surrounded by (British) Hong Kong territory. It was basically lawless for decades.

15

And I’m sure if the police couldn’t speak Spanish, the residents would be llivid. :wink:

16

Do emergency services get expedited treatment at customs and immigration? I wouldn’t want to be standing there on the phone with 911 watching my house burn being told by the operator, “Please stay on the line, sir, the fire truck has been selected for random search at the border and one of the EMT’s has been denied entry to the US due to having insufficient funds on his person to support his visit. The truck is only 5 blocks away but it’ll be about 2 hours and the truck will arrive with insufficient personnel.”

17

In 2007, an ambulance carrying a critically ill patient was sent to secondary screening in Detroit. I guess the treatment in secondary was still expedited compared to what a normal person would experience, but the ambulance still had to stop and the driver had to go inside.

18

No, they’re livios, not lívidos.

19

I remember when our courthose burned about three years ago here in Indiana, the firetrucks came from Kentucky to help fight the blaze. I just think they wouldn’t have missed that event, even if they had to pay to be involved. I recall living on one of Maine’s many penninsulas, and the if you needed law enforcement, they were over 45 minutes away. A lot went on in the bars and such, so people took care of problems themselves. Fewer arrests for simple public intoxication, mainly because there weren’t opportunistic, bored cops waiting around to arrest people. Too much to drink? The citizens took care of it long before the cops showed up, if they even would show up over such a minor problem.

20

They’re supposed to, and there are agreements to allow them to, but you occasionally hear of cases in which those weren’t followed and some overzealous official delayed them. Example.