Could sheriffs get investigative powers?

Local sheriffs said there is only one they are not on a level playing field with state and local police. Sheriff departments are not allowed to investigate potential incidents.

Sheriffs said their department can make an arrest if the evidence is in plain sight but otherwise, the investigation must be handed off to another department in the area.

This happens to them daily according to sheriffs, even though they said many of the over 2,000 sheriff deputies in the state have previous training and experience with investigative agencies.

“That is absurd. That makes absolutely no sense,” Cambria County sheriff Don Robertson said. “I was a police officer for 26 years in the city of Johnstown, but I go from wearing one patch, a city police patch, to putting this patch on and now all of a sudden I don't know how to investigate a crime anymore. It makes no sense.”

Officials said police officers are facing shortages, making sheriffs question even more having to hand off the work they started to a likely already busy department.

“If you're there and you're working on it you're not stopping them from doing something else,” Blair County sheriff James Ott said. “They have to come and take something being handed to them that they didn't initiate to begin with.”

A state representative from eastern Pennsylvania Dave Zimmerman said he is proposing a bill giving sheriffs and their departments the same powers as other police.

Zimmerman said similar legislature has been introduced before and it will be an uphill battle to get it passed, but he is looking to start the conversation of the issue back up.

In a statement Zimmerman said, “For many years and through numerous court cases, the authority, powers and duties of the Sheriffs and Deputy Sheriffs of Pennsylvania have been questioned and challenged. House Bill 2004 will delineate those issues.”

Officials said state police generally oppose the change because they want to avoid the sheriff's department becoming a county police department.

Authorities said tomorrow is the beginning of the Pennsylvania Sheriff's Association winter conference in Harrisburg. They said some legislators will also be in attendance with restoring investigative powers being one of the main topics.

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