Running Code 3 In Cali

[Srebeiro]

Say your a Federal Agent and your in a Pursuit that starts in Oregon and enters CA, to be "In Policy" with reguards to our states emergency lightening recuirements , do you guys need to flip down a steady burning red light?

[Rad Diver]

No, Federal Agents go with federal requirements, laws, and regulations.

Is code 3 lights and sirens. Remember, what cali has for signals and 10 codes are not what the rest of the U.S. is using.

[Srebeiro]

Affirm,
which is why I was asking.

I have noticed however that Fed Reserve Bank I guess more as a uniformity thing has Steady Burning Red lights in their units...

[CA Cop]

Federal law supercedes State law. Federal agents are not CA POST certified peace officers. They abide by what their federal agency mandates. I would think they would call/inform the locals for assistance if needed.

[Srebeiro]

True,
I remember a while back however that there was a pursuit by some Fed's that no one would jump in beacuse of...local pursuit policys and where the Agent in the pursuit was on the phone with golden gate communications... I think it ended in a shootout,
I forget all the details but I wonder if there are any policys in place or equipment to bring Federal Agents working in CA specifically more inline with the area they work.
-Mutual Aide-
I know the SMCSO has a radio identifyer number for FBI...

[Ranger__101]

Edit.

[Ranger__101]

I guess if people are dumm enough not to follow the speed limit let them get a ticket.

We'll as you said you guys can't get the ticket money to your account to use for equipment and expenses, so why not have all the funds raised put against the national debt rather then put in the tresury's slush fund. Plus make sure they can't keep spending any more out of the debt. I guess we can't have it all.

[Srebeiro]

I was thinking there had to be an MOU involved here or there,
-just went out for a drive- and I saw a Federal Reserve Bank Po-po out on a citizens assist and I thought about this.

[Ranger__101]

There definitally needs to be an MOU or state law that gives Federal Law Enforcement Officers authority to enforce any state or local laws. The interesting thing most people are not aware if is there are generally a federal law that matches most state laws.

There would not need to be any MOU for an assist to a citizen, but there would nee to be MOU's for assistance to any Law Enforcement Agency.

[Group9]

I've worked as a federal agent in many states and we often do try to conform with the state code three requirements just out of common sense. We, are not however, bound by them, any more than we are bound by a state law prohibiting the carrying of sawed off shotguns or machine guns.


Edited to remove word "condorm" and replace with "conform". :D

[Srebeiro]

make sense.

[Piggy]

Federal officers either operate on federal land under their own SOP or else they have a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the localities or the state and they operate under that. It's very simple.

It would be easier if we had a list of all 50 states emergency lighting laws and kept a wide array of different colored lens for our emergency lights in the truck so we could pull over at any given time and comply with state law.

[Ranger__101]

We'll were kinda let with two choices.

1. License our vehicle with a regular state plate and have to abide by their laws since their laws apply to any vehicle licensesed. Lucky for us most states are pretty liberal with their lighting on emergency vehicles. Only a few general restrctions.

2. Have the vehicles licensed with Govt plates and meet any federal DOT requirements.

[Srebeiro]

Right on,
I was just curious...

[Group9]

We'll were kinda let with two choices.

1. License our vehicle with a regular state plate and have to abide by their laws since their laws apply to any vehicle licensesed. Lucky for us most states are pretty liberal with their lighting on emergency vehicles. Only a few general restrctions.

2. Have the vehicles licensed with Govt plates and meet any federal DOT requirements.

Just because you have regular license plates issued to a federal car does not make it subject to state requirements. Insurance is a good example. Even though most states require insurance, federal cars don't carry it as the federal government is self insured. Sometimes when we are in wrecks, this makes the other passenger raise hell, thinking we are running some kind of scam on them when give them a Federal Tort Claim form and we tell them that we don't have insurance, and to just have their insurance company call our admin clerk and they will take care of it.

In states that issue inspection stickers, we are even exempt from that unless the office just decides it is less trouble to go get one so we are not getting pulled over for it all the time and they don't have another way to obtain them. In one office I was in that was located in a state that had yearly inspection sticker requirements, we would be called in to the OGV girl's office and she would have a box of inspections stickers and tell you to get one out to put on your OGV.