County or City?

[Punisherthunder]

I aim to graduate college this year and join one of the "big two" here in town. But I don't know whether to go for the county or city PD. Here are the two websites if anyone wants to take a look for a minute and comment on anything.

County: http://www.hcsheriff.gov/

City: http://www.chattanooga.gov/74_107.htm

[Rad Diver]

Do multiple ride-alongs on different shifts with each agency and that should help you alot.

[Kimble]

COUNTY!!! (sorry, I'm a little biased :D , just follow Rad Driver's advice)

[cecilVA]

Depends on what you want. Big or small dept? big or small city? kind of areas? job benefits for both? room for advancement?

[MOCOP]

Hamilton County SO used to be a pretty good dept. to work for and CPD wasn't bad ethier. It depends on what you want.

[Punisherthunder]

I like the idea of a smaller dept, but having room to be promoted is nice too. Here if you join the County, then you have to start out in the jail first. The shifts for County are 12hrs long and usually 3 on and 4 off. City has 8 hour shifts and they are usually 12 on and 4 off. Ride alongs are avaliable for City, but not County (at least that I haven't found).

[SeVere]

COUNTY!!! (sorry, I'm a little biased :D , just follow Rad Driver's advice)

That's cuz you are from the south. Up North, Cities are Runnin' Thangs and Don't you forget it...County Boy! LOL :p

[Rad Diver]

Come on down south .....The county Sheriff Deputies have jurisdiction over cities. I love telling a city cop who is doing a pursuit over a traffic offense to cancel their pursuit and then find out it is a Sgt. with the city agency.

Man, I love being a Deputy!!!

[DeltaV]

It depends on where you are. Sometimes there are certain protections that city officers have that deputies don't. For example, deputies down here in Florida have just recently been allowed to unionize. In some places, deputies were 'at will' employees, meaning that they could be fired anytime for any reason. City officers usually have some sort of civil service protection. Also, there's usually more politics involved in county agencies, especially when it comes to promotions.

If everything else was equal, I'd go for the agency with better pay and benefits. I could care less if a deputy or state trooper came up to me and gave me crap about his jurisdiction being bigger than mine. I could just shoot back that my paycheck is bigger than his.

[SeVere]

Come on down south .....The county Sheriff Deputies have jurisdiction over cities. I love telling a city cop who is doing a pursuit over a traffic offense to cancel their pursuit and then find out it is a Sgt. with the city agency.

Man, I love being a Deputy!!!

The sheriff here has no jurisdiction over us and tells us nothing, and people here leave the Sheriff's Office to go to Cities not the other way around!

I know down south, the sheriff runs things, up here, the sheriff runs the jails, courts and has their little piece of unincorporated pie.

Do they have county wide jurisdiction, sure, but is it their primary area of responsibility nope!

But hey I have nothing but love for my Deputy Sheriffs, County Correctional Officers, and Sheriff's Police Officers!

And for the record, Clinical Studies prove that City Officers are more attractive on average than County Officers. In other words, City Officers are the Beautiful People.

2 out of 3 Doctors surveyed determined that they find city officers more attractive, fit, and fabulous than their county counterparts. LOL!

[DeltaV]

The sheriff here has no jurisdiction over us and tells us nothing, and people here leave the Sheriff's Office to go to Cities not the other way around!

That's actually the way it is here too. Florida Statute 901.25 gives ANY officer the right to pursue a suspect outside of their jurisdiction for any offense. Nowhere in the statute does it say that the agency with jurisdiction has to approve the pursuit. I don't take orders from deputies, and if one attempted to tell me to end my pursuit, I'd ignore him.

[Rad Diver]

It depends on where you are. Sometimes there are certain protections that city officers have that deputies don't. For example, deputies down here in Florida have just recently been allowed to unionize. In some places, deputies were 'at will' employees, meaning that they could be fired anytime for any reason. City officers usually have some sort of civil service protection. Also, there's usually more politics involved in county agencies, especially when it comes to promotions.

If everything else was equal, I'd go for the agency with better pay and benefits. I could care less if a deputy or state trooper came up to me and gave me crap about his jurisdiction being bigger than mine. I could just shoot back that my paycheck is bigger than his.

Ya, got a point there!!!! My bargaining unit is attempting to make our pay = with that of competing agencies.

[Rad Diver]

[QUOTE=PatrickM98]That's actually the way it is here too. Florida Statute 901.25 gives ANY officer the right to pursue a suspect outside of their jurisdiction for any offense. Nowhere in the statute does it say that the agency with jurisdiction has to approve the pursuit. I don't take orders from deputies, and if one attempted to tell me to end my pursuit, I'd ignore him. [QUOTE]


I'll get back to you on that. I'll pull my statute book out of my car tomorrow and look it up.

The best way I can explain it is: city cop has jurisdicition w/in the city they are in, county deputy has jurisdiction over the entire county/including the cities, Highway Patrol as jurisdiction over the state, etc.

I have cancelled pursuits going through my juridiction, outside of the city limits of the agency involved, because they did not meet my agencies policy for a pursuit and actually not meet their own agencies policy either. If they do it in the city jurisdiction...then they can have at it ( I really don't care if they are doing pursuits in the city, they'll tell me about it later and it always is a good story :D ), but once it leaves the city and enters the county area, I can terminate the pursuit, just as the highway patrol can terminate mine/or any city agency.

[Reapp]

I'd like to see a Deputy in Texas try that, sure would make things interesting. Just because you have county wide jurisdiction does not give you supervisory oversight...

[ChesCopPodz]

Come on down south .....The county Sheriff Deputies have jurisdiction over cities. I love telling a city cop who is doing a pursuit over a traffic offense to cancel their pursuit and then find out it is a Sgt. with the city agency.

Man, I love being a Deputy!!!

That's BS