Railroad Police

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

So I was talking with a criminal defense attorney - and he literally swore that RR police were not on the same footing as regular municipal and state police. He claimed that RR police were not actually “sworn officers” because they worked for a private entity not a government.

However, an interesting distinction, he did say that Metra police were full police, but not UP or BNSF police, per say. He said it was because Metra was a quasi-government entity.

He basically said RR police were like security guards with police power, but if they arrested someone they couldn’t actually book them and complete the process, they would hand over the suspect to local PD.

Now my understanding is that UP, BNSF, or any other RR police are full police that can do everything standard police do, including booking people. My understanding is that railroads and universities were the only two private entities which were entitled to raise their own police force.

Who is correct here?

2

Probably depends on the state. Can’t speak for IL. California, they are full peace officers when so commissioned, (Penal Code 830.33 (e)

“… the primary duty of the peace officer is the enforcement of the law
in or about properties owned, operated, or administered by the employing agency
or when performing necessary duties with respect to patrons, employees, and properties
of the employing agency”

I Believe there is also something in 49 USC … ah yes, here it is

(edit: I had CFR, should have had USC in the cite… guess I was anti-Trojan there!)

Sec. 28101. Rail police officers

    Under regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Transportation, a 
rail police officer who is employed by a rail carrier and certified or 
commissioned as a police officer under the laws of a State may enforce 
the laws of any jurisdiction in which the rail carrier owns property, to 
the extent of the authority of a police officer certified or 
commissioned under the laws of that jurisdiction, to protect--
        (1) employees, passengers, or patrons of the rail carrier;
        (2) property, equipment, and facilities owned, leased, operated, 
    or maintained by the rail carrier;
        (3) property moving in interstate or foreign commerce in the 
    possession of the rail carrier; and
        (4) personnel, equipment, and material moving by rail that are 
    vital to the national defense.

Just a couple of data points.

3

Most are licensed federal marshalls (with badges and guns, dealing with interstate commerce)

Sounds like this dimestore lawyer (expert at everything, proficient at none) is horribly ill-prepared to argue the law.

4

State to State and jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In NY, and believe NJ too, most railroad police officers have full and same authority as the State Police because they work in all municipalities and counties the railroad operates plus adjacent counties. They are not night watchmen nor security guards, but full fledge police officers.

5

Generally, you are. Illinois may have some odd quirk that makes it different - I’ve not researched the issue - but I very much doubt it. See this article from Trains which was mainly about the C&NW’s police in the Chicago area:

“Chicago Knights” - Chicago & North Western’s police
by Zierke, Jim - Trains, February 1993, p. 62

You might ask the fellow if he’s ever researched the statute or argued the issue on behalf of one of his clients - and see what he says then - if yes, ask for the details. One of my favorite profs - Robert Barry, (may he Rest In Peace) - had a couple of sayings that are pertinent here: “When in doubt, check the statute !”; and - delivered thunderously, as he was an amatuer thespian, too - “Quo warranto ?”, which is Latin for “By what right ?!?” That one would cut both ways here - to confirm the railroad police officers authority, and also to challenge this attorney to provide a basis for his assertion other than mere opinion . . .

Again, I doubt that his typically mistaken understanding has ever had a professional opportunity to be corrected. That’s common enough in lawyering - no one can know it all, even though they like to think and act like they can and do. . . . [:-^]

I’ll spare you the criminal lawyer jokes this morning . . . [swg]

  • Paul North.
6

Ah, but I won’t.

A criminal lawyer runs a stop sign and gets pulled over by a sheriff’s deputy. He thinks that he is smarter than the deputy because he is a lawyer from New York and is certain that he has a better education than any cop from Texas . He decides to prove this to himself and have some fun at the Texas deputy’s expense.

The deputy says, “License and registration, please.”

“What for?” says the lawyer.

The deputy says, “You didn’t come to a complete stop at the stop sign.”

Then the lawyer says, “I slowed down, and no one was coming.”

“You still didn’t come to a complete stop, Says the deputy. License and registration, please.”

The lawyer says, “What’s the difference?”

“The difference is you have to come to acomplete stop, that’s the law. License and registration, please!” the Deputy says.

Lawyer says, “If you can show me the legal difference between slow down and stop, I’ll give you my license and registration; and you give me the ticket. If not, you let me go and don’t give me the ticket.”

“That sounds fair. Please exit your vehicle, sir,” the deputy says.

At this point, the deputy takes out his nightstick and starts beating the daylights out of the lawyer and says, “Do you want me to stop, or just slow down?”

7

Easy one: You wrote “criminal lawyer” - don’t be unnecessarily redundant . . . [swg]

8

Remember who that attorney was, so if you ever get in a jam, you know who not to retain!

We have a firm out here that crops up from time to time. You probably remember the Scott Peterson case in Northern California. They get plenty of publicity from time to time, yet I never hear of them winning a case. Not the guys I want to sit next to at the defense table.

9

To Zardoz, and Paul North .

You guys owe me a computer key board![#oops]

Damages about 70 % to Zardoz[zzz], and 30% to Paul North![:-^]

You taught me a lesson never look around here while dirinkin’ (?)…Coffee! [oops]

[(-D][(-D]

10

Ask a Railroad cop this question: If you see a carjacking in progress and a thief breaking into a boxcar of the railroad that employs him, ask him which one he is going to respond to first.

I asked one and he said that he would “have to stop the boxcar thief” because “the railroad is his employer”. But at the same time, he would call the “jacking” in.

11

I find that interesting. Now if you said a thief is breaking into a car and another is breaking into a boxcar, which does the RR cop go after, well in the case if the RR cop says boxcar I can completely understand.

However, if you’re talking about a carjacking now you’re talking about a person being forced out of their car, so there is the possibility of bodily injury while a thief breaking into a boxcar will only steal goods and not threaten any bodily injury. It would seem that a copy, any cop, should deal with crimes that threaten bodily harm before dealing with crimes that deal with property harm.

What if a RR cop a crook A breaking into a boxcar and crook B was doing an armed robbery and shooting? I’d think it’d be hard to for any police officer to justify going after a property thief when there is another criminal also in the vicinity who is firing a gun at people.

12

Some years ago I asked this question to the chief of the ICG Police.

He told me that in Illinois:

  1. They only had authority in counties where the railroad operated.

  2. In those counties where the railroad operated the railroad officers had the same authority and standing as a deputy sheriff.

He left the railroad to become the Chief of Police in Monticello, IL. He took the most fetching, beautiful, adminisrative assistant the railroad had ever employed with him.

13

If I remember correctly RR police receive their authority under federal statute. That would place those officers in a different category then a state or local officer. ie RR police authority is by US government, which under the commerce clause of the constitution preempts local and state authority. It would also confer authority to operate in multiple jurisdicatgions and acrfoss state lines. Given the scope of RRoperations that becomes a neccesity.

There arevother private organizations with this kind of federal authority that I have noticed in my travels. And yes these concerns carry weapons.

someone will have to forgive my typing here as I am trying to do this on my cell phone

by the by who can i sue for the damage to my laptop?(LOL)

thx ign

14

This isn’t exactly correct. Look back at ChuckCobleigh’s note, which quotes the underlying statute. The RR officer must be commissioned in at least one state. If he or she is, the Federal statute allows the officer to enforce only certain types of laws in other jurisdictions in which the employing RR has property, generally those dealing with RR property, cargo, passengers and facitilties. FRA regulations (49 CFR Part 207) provide detailed requirements for obtaining this authority and its exercise.

Also, in answer to some of the earlier posts regarding a “carjacking” scenario, a “carjacking” off RR property isn’t one of the kinds of laws listed in the statute. So a RR police officer operating in a state other than the state in which he/she is commissioned cannnot enforce these laws. He /she also can only enforce laws on RR property, or when pursuing someone off property suspecting of violating the law on RR property, unless the state’s laws permit the RR officer to engage in wider enforcement, see 49 CFR 207.5(d).

15

Since greyhounds above mentioned that “Some years ago” there were jurisdictional issues, etc., I wondered when 49 USC Sec. 28101 was enacted - short answer is 1990, which of course is a decade before the tragic events of 9-11-2001.

Better yet, in the course of looking I found the article linked below from Police Chief magazine in March 2009 - “Authority of the Railroad Police” By Dave Domzalski, Associate General Counsel and Director, Legal Services, Amtrak Police Department, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, complete with 16 footnotes (from The Police Chief, vol. LXXVII, no. 3, March 2009. Copyright held by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, 515 North Washington Street, Alexandria, VA 22314 USA):

http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=print_display&article_id=1759&issue_id=32009

The article has an easy-to-follow and comprehend structure, and is also well-written for both laypersons and legal professionals. The author is perhaps uniquely qualified to write the article, because Amtrak operates in many different states and with all major railroads, and so has to be ‘up to speed’ with the particulars of each state as well as the federal statutes, as you’ll see. There are a few wrinkles in there that I didn’t know about, either, but I’ll leave each of you to discover those for yourself . . . [:-^]

Beyond this, I was also wondering if anyone knows of any textbooks (unlikely), or even chapters in law enforcement texts or references, etc. that mention or discuss railroad police officers in any detail. If not, then here’s an opportunity for a potential author - I’m sure the subject has been litigated and challenged more than a

16

I know there have been books written about them, just can’t recall. Of course the “railroad bulls” were the bad guys of the hobo era. There is certainly a lot fiction written incorporating the “bulls”. I wonder, based on the date and the painstaking historic references and details, that this was not written in reference to Amtrak police and Homeland Security.

The Pinkertons were the first “railroad” police in that they were hired when train robberies became prevalent. Security for gold and payrolls and mail were important (although the US Post Office also had their own inspectors and police). Stopped trains became targets for theft from cars, vandalism and sabotage became problems especially in times of strikes and wars. So naturally a police or security system was needed. They also perform to keep injury and fatalities to a minimum in keeping trespassers off tracks and property. Unique is probably the New York City Transit Police, a completely separate police department from the regular blue. (Did I see or hear that this department was to have been, or it has been suggested that it be, rolled into the NYPD?)

17

The “railroad bulls” of old is a legacy that is well-founded here in Pennsylvania. The statutory references are usually to “Coal, Iron, and Railroad Police” if I recall correctly. And once you know something of the labor - management relations and frequently violent confrontations in those industries about 100 - 125 years ago, that tells you a lot about the similarities and powers that each possess . . . [sigh]

Yes, I’m sure it was.

In my little bit of research, I did see some references to “transit police” as not being railroad police, but more in the nature of a municipal police force, though with a very oddly shaped and located jurisdiction. . . [swg]

  • Paul North.
18

And maybe one mean conductor? “A Number One” against “Shack” comes to mind. SImon Oakland actually played the only cop in the film.

19

Also “A#1”, “A No. 1”, etc. per the Internet Movie DataBase listing for -

Emperor of the North (Pole) - see: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070030/

The “Goofs” page is pretty interesting - quite a few anachronisms there . . . [:-^]

  • Paul North.
20

As far as I know, in Canada the railway police have the same powers as normal police forces (RCMP, provincial and municipal). Of course their focus is on rail issues and don’t have the time or interest to “freelance” elsewhere! But as an example, if you are misbehaving badly chasing a fan trip they could be able to issue traffic tickets.

John