Western Railroad Discussion > Railroad Police Officer-Involved Shooting

Very little details but a UP special agent shot a subject in Mason City Iowa.
http://www.dps.state.ia.us/commis/pib/Releases/2018/11-30-2018_DCI_MCPD_PR.shtml?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery


 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/30/18 16:16 by pnger64.

I can't remember the last time I heard about a RR Cop even pulling their weapon.

Pretty sketchy.
 

A Conrail police officer was critically injured when he surprised several Jerzy Boyz container bandits.

Guy worked alone in an area where city cops worked 2 and 4.

Posted from Android

Amtrak cop shot and killed someone outside of Chicago Union Station in February 2017.

Posted from iPhone

A Union Pacific Police officer was invovled in  fatal shooting in Southern California in 1997. One of the first in the modern era that became a test to see how the railroad would support the officer. The UP Special Agent interupted an armed robbery at a convience store in theSan Bernardino area and challenged the armed suspect as he exited the store. When the suspect refused to drop his weapon and raised up the weapon, he was shot by the special agent.  The special agent was nominated for the Parade Magazine/International Association of Chiefs of Police Officer of the Year. He ended up winning an honorable mention.

Gary

99% (if not 100%) of all RR Police (Class 1) are experienced police officers before coming to the railroad.

Hiring practices for some time look for officers with at least 5 years and must be able to be certified in the primary state working.

What they can do off property is granted by each state’s law, but on property is protected by federal law.

Most RR police (outside of transit/commuter) is far and few with little to no help for them.

All the guys I have met were great guys and employed as their retirement job since they became an officer young and retired in their 40’s or guys who wanted to try a specialty / something different career path.

MP683 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 99% (if not 100%) of all RR Police (Class 1) are
> experienced police officers before coming to the
> railroad.
>
> Hiring practices for some time look for officers
> with at least 5 years and must be able to be
> certified in the primary state working.
>
> What they can do off property is granted by each
> state’s law, but on property is protected by
> federal law.
>
> Most RR police (outside of transit/commuter) is
> far and few with little to no help for them.
>
> All the guys I have met were great guys and
> employed as their retirement job since they became
> an officer young and retired in their 40’s or
> guys who wanted to try a specialty / something
> different career path.

Good summary.  Having a team of people who are familiar with that state's laws, have done various police academies, can work on their own almost from day 1 is a huge advantage.

Having the (additional) state endorsement as a sworn officer is important because it lets you bring charges as a law enforcement officer in state and municipal courts, and access the state's wants and warrants.  Your trespassing on a railroad facility charge wouldn't be of interest to a federal district court.

On the SP the last shooting I can recall was near the end of SP operated commute trains at the San Francisco depot. A guy had a knife in hand and was making threatening gestures / comments at passengers on the platform. SP detective and uniformed SP cop repeatedly told subject to drop the knife. Instead guy came at cops. Detective fired one shot into subject’s stomach. He dropped knife as he fell to ground. Survived and sent to prison.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/01/18 10:52 by Westbound.

When I worked for BN / BNSF as a special agent e frequently spoke of being a 'one man felony car' since weusually had no close back up. Local BNSF & UP cops now have radios to  talk directly to State Patrol disptach in Colorado. I'm guessing it's similar in other  states.

James Nelson
Thornton, CO
www.flickr.com/mojaveflyer

I was told in Texas railroad police are actually (legally) deputy sheriffs.

mojaveflyer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> When I worked for BN / BNSF as a special agent e
> frequently spoke of being a 'one man felony car'
> since weusually had no close back up. Local BNSF &
> UP cops now have radios to  talk directly to
> State Patrol disptach in Colorado. I'm guessing
> it's similar in other  states.

Several years ago, a UP Special Agent told me that in California the UP Police had requested permission for access to the California Highway Patrol radio system. It made sense because it is the only statewide radio system and for the most part everywhere the CHP went so did the UP. What CHP offered was use of the old California State Police radio channel, which was a separate radio system that didn’t cover the whole state and probably is not well maintained. Don’t think UP took them up on it.

Gary

Posted from iPhone

mojaveflyer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> When I worked for BN / BNSF as a special agent e
> frequently spoke of being a 'one man felony car'
> since weusually had no close back up. Local BNSF &
> UP cops now have radios to  talk directly to
> State Patrol disptach in Colorado. I'm guessing
> it's similar in other  states.

my hat is off to you.  when i worked in L.A., we had NO direct communication with the r.r. police.  on railroad property that went through so. central L.A. where i worked, i would think that the at&sf cops needed to be very careful about the situations they encountered or placed themselves into........

66      

goneon66 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> mojaveflyer Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > When I worked for BN / BNSF as a special agent
> e
> > frequently spoke of being a 'one man felony
> car'
> > since weusually had no close back up. Local BNSF
> &
> > UP cops now have radios to  talk directly to
> > State Patrol disptach in Colorado. I'm guessing
> > it's similar in other  states.
>
> my hat is off to you.  when i worked in L.A., we
> had NO direct communication with the r.r.
> police.  on railroad property that went through
> so. central L.A. where i worked, i would think
> that the at&sf cops needed to be very careful
> about the situations they encountered or placed
> themselves into........
>
> 66

Stumbling onto a gang of heavily armed Marines burglarizing a BNSF train on the Needles Sub in the desert always seemed like a nightmare scenario to me.

mapboy

All states have whats called the LERN(Law Enforcement Radio Network ) It is a common freq that any squad car has and you can talk to any other agency when needed. This allows  RR police, FBI,  Marshalls or  whoever the ability talk to which ever agency they need to with out having every jurisdictions freq preprogrammed  into their radios, it is also used by FDs for helicopter medical evacualtions . 

 

California has statewide state and federal mutual is radio channels for public safety (car to car, repeated in some areas). But the state is a big mix of VHF Low, VHF High, UHF/T, 700/800 in trunked, non-trunked, analog and digital formats. The ability for random law enforcement units from different agencies to talk to each other is near non-existent.

Fire departments have better coordination. Just about every rig in the state has a VHF radio to communicate with Cal-Fire. They may have to have more than radio to do it though.

Gary

Posted from iPhone

So since I did this in a previous life, I’ll dispel some common misconceptions.

Communications:

-Railroad police primarily operate on the local RR channels. They will let local management know they are working in an area (aka yards) if needed at the time.

-Calls for service these days are handled via cell phone call outs.

-RR police notifiy their people where they are or if any patrol plan deviation

-CHP maintains the same radio system that they have had for decades. There is nothing new with it, other than switching to P25 for the vehicle repeater system. In many locations, they have enabled a “poor mans repeater” by patching the input to the output channels, but is not a repeated system.

They still operate in lowband, and one of the few agencies to do so.

California State Police primarily operated in Sac and used VHF radios in the capital. It was never statewide as a radio system, even though they were primary law enforcement for state agencies that did not have its own law enforcement branch. They operated at facility level in most cases and utilitized local radio systems as needed - and had CHP radios/access. They were folded into CHP in 1995 IIRC.

-RR police may use local, regional or state radio systems based on MOU’s, railroad funding and availability. Areas where RR police are very active may have additional radios that are compatible with said radio systems (Motorola Smart series, EDACS, P25 Phase 1, P25 Phase 2, etc.). Those radios typically cost around 4-5k plus programming and possible monthly or airtime fees.

States like Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Utah, Kansas etc will allow public safety agencies to come onboard at no cost for mutual aid purposes. If they want their own talkgroups, then they are typically subject to user fees.

-NLEEF National Law Enforcement Emergency Freq was a FCC set aside channel for police. 155.475. It may get renamed by some states (like California who likes to make their own standards). Today it’s officially called VLAW31 under the NIFOG. Not everyone has this. If you operate anything other than VHF, you won’t have access. With the advent of multiband radios, it’s more possible that it’s hiding in a mutual aid zone, but usually not readily scanned.

-RRPD to RRPD coordination via radio is preplanned for the areas where two or more railroads share operations/routes (think Cajon, LA, Denver etc). There is always listed an AAR channel for RR police, but it was never really implemented, but keeps showing up in books and websites.

-NS has been installing encrypted NXDN networked repeaters for their police.

-RR police have different legal authorities off property depending on the state they are in, with a couple of states giving no off property powers.

Texas and California give peace officer status and they may conduct traffic stops, Ms and felony arrests on any state crime.

SP police were known to conduct traffic stops in the Cajon areas and take accidents on the freeways. This was also when there were many more RR cops.

-Commuter/transit police work more like city police and typically have an establish police communicAtions center and operates similar to a Norma police department. Think Metra, MTA, etc



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/01/18 20:50 by MP683.