You should understand the “Off Duty” cop is working as a “Special Duty” cop. In Cols. OH I was familiar with the cops who would work a restaurant on weekends. Very useful after the bars closed. The restaurant paid the Police Department for the LEO’s time. The PD paid the LEO from that. That way, insurance was not an issue. He was covered by the PD’s.
I’m not sure how this is different from paid duty police in Canada – they’re getting paid extra to work during their off hours. The Toronto Police Service page even says that they won’t normally do undercover work, so they require police to wear their uniforms at the time. Isn’t this the same thing? Am I missing a nuance?
This was my understanding growing up in Canada. Quite a few events would hire off-duty police officers to provide security, since they carried far more authority than mere mortals. (IIRC under Canadian law, even off duty a policeman is considered a peace officer; and of course, when it comes to any charges and court cases, will be believed sooner than some rent-a-cop). I think it had to be a formal arrangement, if not through the police department then cleared by them, to allow the officer to wear his police uniform. Also, some public events had to pay for the extra police security required for them to be put on. (Concerts? Fairs? parades?)
I don’t know if someone can just wander around an event dressed in their uniform for their own satisfaction.
But this is for actual police work. I don’t think any police force wants their official uniform to be used for “let’s pretend” events like in a play. You want to distinguish between official business and a play. In fact, I recall reading somewhere that imitating Mountie fancy dress (the red tunic and scout hat) is illegal, and most media portrayals just look similar, rather than exactly the same.
In the UK, if you see a cop in uniform, they are certainly on duty. The idea that they could patrol a mall in their free time, wearing their uniform would cause an uproar here.
Cops in uniform at major events like football matches will be on duty, but the event managers will be paying for their services. I suspect that most cops who feel the need to moonlight, do so in non-security jobs like driving taxis.
As others have mentioned, the school board probably hired the officer’s employer, not the officer directly.
In Virginia, there are actual rent-a-cops, individuals who have qualified as police officers (“special conservators of the peace”) and are self-employed.
I can only answer for my state (Wisconsin) and agency.
Around here there are departments that will allow private businesses to hire their officers for certain events. What’s happening is the event promoter is actually hiring the agency not the individual officer. Off the top of my head I believe the Washington County Sheriffs Office still does that with their Special Deputy staff (part-time Deps). You’ll see them at special events at stores and such.
Officers live or die by their agencies written policies. Whenever you hear about an officer getting fired it’s almost always for violating a policy. Follow written policies and even when things go completely to shit you’ll be alright. I don’t know of any agency that would allow an individual officer to sell his services on his own while wearing the departments uniform. When you see actual police officers at private functions like concerts, fairs, indoor events and such, the show promoters may be billed by the department but they are not hiring the officers individually.
Prior to where I work now I was a Deputy for 25 years. We had some Sheriffs that required us to carry a firearm, handcuffs, and ID card at all times and take action while within the county even for minor infractions. I freaking hated that! After I retired I started a second career with another agency.
My current departments policy absolutely forbids officers from wearing their uniform outside of work hours with the exception of coming to/going home from work. And outside of a violent felony we are not to take an enforcement action. Also, if employed in private security we are forbidden from identifying ourselves as a LEO and from taking any law enforcement actions while on the clock for a private company, and forbidden from displaying our police badge, ID card, uniform, etc… Even though state law allows for all of that department SOP absolutely forbids it.
It’s relatively common in Toronto, in certain situations.
EDIT: Ninja’ed by Cerowyn
Hiring an off-duty officer for security is common in the US. I am in Louisiana. It used to be/still is a source of problems but the benefits apparently outweigh the problems. It used to be (around here) that one simply hired a policeman to work security during his off hours and paid him directly. Bars in the French Quarter often did that. The ethical and financial challenges to that practice are obvious. Now to hire the police as security, one goes through the police department. You are paying the department to pay a policeman overtime for which the department chooses to assign a policeman to your activity. It keeps the dollars and the authority clean. There are still problems, who gets the lucrative OT for instance, but that is now an internal problem in the police department where it is better handled than problems directly with the public.
Oh, and something that is obvious in retrospect but I hadn’t realized for the longest time, the authority of a policeman comes from the state, not any local government that hires them. Which means that every cop is “warranted” ( I think that is the correct word) by the state to be able to enforce the laws and make arrests. Even though the police are trained locally, the training meets state criteria and when the person completes the course the power comes from the state government. The training always covers local matters in addition to the state requirements, but the warrant comes from the state and is based on state criteria. Which means that every policeman has equal legal authority throughout the state, though many laws and policies prevent every village cop from making arrests outside their jurisdiction. It also means that a local sheriff or police superintendent can’t revoke a policeman’s ability to be a policeman. A cop can be fired from a given job, which severely limits his/her employment prospects, but only the state an unmake a policeman. Which I gather is a big deal internally to the police forces.
My detailed knowledge applies only to Louisiana but I believe this is true throughout the US.
I suppose one way to look at it would be to ask “why do we have police”? The main benefit of having police is of course, the more police there are, the less major crimes that are going to be committed in a given population. So if police reduce crime, more police are better. But you have finite public funds to hire police. So, apparently, at least some departments have “part time” officers who get about 2-3 days a week on the public payroll, and they spend the rest of the weed working private security.
So it means the department has more officers they can call upon if something happens. It also means that while the officer is doing private security, they are still deterring crime, albeit only in the areas that can afford private security that tend to be low crime anyway.
These things are mostly governed by local policies and regulations. My department is pretty typical. Most of our extra duty jobs are traffic not security but the rules are the same. It’s pretty much as others have described. When someone wants to hire a police officer either as security or for traffic control they go through the department. Those jobs are distributed as per our policy and are paid for by the company. No tax payer money is used and in fact the department gets paid an hourly administrative fee. When they hire us they are hiring a cop. We wear a uniform and all our equipment. If needed we use police cars. Our actions are governed by the law and our rules and regulations. We do what the company wants as long as it’s not in conflict with that. We are a municipal department so we only get hired within the town. You won’t find us working out of town in uniform unless it’s a mutual aide situation. We also have rules that state all outside employment that is not through the department must be approved by the administration.
For certain jobs we have Special Officers. They are part time and mostly retired officers who only get an hourly rate. They get hired for jobs that the township has to pay for like court security or town council meetings. That’s for no other reason than their hourly rate is a third of our extra duty rate. They also get a chance to work our rate if any jobs go unfilled.
TLDR: yes you can get hired as security in uniform and you are acting as and with the powers of a police officer.
It’s definitely not true throughout the US. The NYS Criminal Procedure Law’s definition of “police officers” (sec 1.20)includes a long list of persons who are police officers, and they are all related to employment. For example :
A sworn member of the division of state police;
A sworn officer of an authorized police department or force of a
city, town, village or police district
An investigator employed in the office of a district attorney
The chief and deputy fire marshals, the supervising fire marshals
and the fire marshals of the bureau of fire investigation of the New
York City fire department
The OP (and others) apparently are unaware that the term “rent-a-cop” typically does not refer to members of a police department.
*Definition of rent-a-cop
US, often disparaging
:a security worker (such as a guard) who is not a police officer*
There is one major issue with off duty police working as security: the fact that after you work so many hours your judgement starts to cloud and you make poor decisions.
Overtime has likely killed police officers and non police citizens quite often.
You assume that is an issue that is ignored. It’s not. It is dependent on the agency as to how it is enforced but there are OSHA guidelines. In my department there is a time limit per day as to how many hours per day an officer can work. It means that night shift guys can’t work their first day off and gives the advantage to day shift but that’s just how it is.
I haven’t seen cops working off duty security carrying a radio. That puts them at greater risk. They can’t quickly call for back up.
911 is slower response compared to directly talking to dispatch.
Come to think of it I HAVE hired cops as security for one particularly big shoot. I didn’t deal with the details so I don’t know exactly how they got paid, but they were for crowd control and safety, and they came with at least a couple of squad cars–I didn’t pay a great deal of attention as I was busy with other things. But they must have had radios as the area concerned was very large. This was in New Mexico.
If a cop is a cop 24/7 then is the department civilly liable for their actions 24/7. Is the cop acting under color of authority in a case like this?
What about a stripper policeman hired for a bachelorette party? Is that handled through the police department? Do they retain arrest authority when they’re naked? Is the state liable for how they swing their batons?
I don’t see how this contradicts what I (meant) to say. My point is that the concept of police power comes from the sovereign-in this case the State. A local Government is created by the state and is not sovereign and can’t create a policeman. One of the LEOs in this thread can clear this up quickly, but it is my understanding that only the State Government can “ordain” a policeman. Now, those policemen can perform many different roles as your list shows and undergo different training, but in all cases after they finish their training as a fire marshal, they get a certificate from the state or at least delegated by the state making them some type of LEO. Each state has their own methods and procedures for doing this, but my point is simply that in principle the power to be a policemen comes from the sovereign government-in the US the states and the federal government. Perhaps Indian Tribes can create their own police, I am not sure. They certainly have their own police forces, whether they are created by the state or the tribe I don’t know.