Posted: 1/8/2010 4:37:52 PM EDT
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Hi all, just wondering what you all think of the posse members. Also curious what real authority they have for traffic stops or other.
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Not thinking of joining. No personal back story. An acquaintance (former deputy) was telling me they are not police officers and have no authority. Wondered if anyone had more detail. Why would they allow someone to dress like a deputy and drive a marked vehicle if they were not a law officer?
Sorry if there is no excitement in the thread 
PS - I won't be back to respond to this thread for about 30+ hours. Leaving for airport on a long trip. |
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Quoted:
Not thinking of joining. No personal back story. An acquaintance (former deputy) was telling me they are not police officers and have no authority. Wondered if anyone had more detail. Why would they allow someone to dress like a deputy and drive a marked vehicle if they were not a law officer? Sorry if there is no excitement in the thread
PS - I won't be back to respond to this thread for about 30+ hours. Leaving for airport on a long trip. You might be getting posse member confused with Reserve Deputy. |
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As I understand it, a posse member derives their authority from the deputy on scene. If a deputy and posse member are together at a traffic stop and the actors flee, the deputy can chase and detain one, while the posse member can chase and detain the other. They are armed to assist the deputies in the performance of their duties and to protect themselves and the another party as necessary as is allowed by AZ law. They cannot act without the authority of sworn LEO, but, as was explained to me, they can initiate a traffic stop if it is necessary to preserve life. If they are following a speeder and said speeder is approaching a school zone as class ends, they can make the stop, but a deputy has to take it from there.
They do have the same right to arrest as any AZ citizen. I had a Posse Commander in my Reserve unit and worked with a PhD type who was Posse but worked primarily in the lab. |
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Orion67 has it exactly right. There's a posse guy that posts here sometimes... you may have seen his avatar which is a pic of him next to some funky off road vehicle with MSCO markings.
The posse is like a NO COST Force multiplier. You can send one Deputy and 5 posse guys to do a detail. I've heard several stories of doucher posse guys getting arrested for badge flashing/presenting themselves as Sworn officers when off duty. The Sheriff's office will arrest posse guys for this type of thing. |
| I work close to Sun City and some of Sun City Posse use to come into the store. We had a commercial account for the Posse and the old guys would want the discount and also use a coupon or they would buy a sale item and still want more off because of their discount. They would get all shitty with us when we told them “one or the other, but you can’t get both” They never pull the bad ass cop stuff with us; they just acted like a bunch of old asshats. From the way the other people from Sun City treated them and talked about them it seemed to me they were a joke. I’ve seen some old guys who right down disliked them. I think they help out the Sheriff Dept. and do us all a service, just as long as they don’t try to play super cop. |
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Yeah, a volunteer patrol, who provide their own uniforms, duty belt, weapon, and time. The have extensive training, and can pull some pretty shitty details, including body recovery by the Search & Rescue and Dive Teams. They have a mounted unit, a jeep (off-road) unit, cruise the mall parking lots during the holidays to suppress strong armed robberies and auto theft, and put an extra set of eyes and ears in some of the more remote areas of Maricopa County.
There have been asshats, there are in any group, but I have no doubt 200 extra eyes on things during Christmas shopping has benefited all of us to some extent. |
| I was in the posse years ago when they had there own air unit (2 surplus helicopters from the army) All members were required to go through training as if they were going to become a deputy, to include weapons training and legal classes. As has been mentioned just with every volunteer organization there are wingnuts that give them a bad name, but for the most part these guys were good folks that just wanted to help out and many of them former military too boot. They usually got the crap assignments like directing traffic and such but they added the strenght by numbers where there would have been none. Its a good deal if managed correctly, get the wrong person with a gun and badge and we all know how that goes. |