Alabama Church about to get its own police force

[tmc]

Can't believe this!!!
Have they not watched game of thrones?
This won't end well.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/12/us/alabama-church-police-force-trnd/

http://www.al.com/living/index.ssf/2017/04/briarwood_church_moves_a_step.html

Edit:

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...te-says-church-can-start-its-own-police-force

The church had drug issue in the past:

http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/04/drug_bust_at_briarwood_christi.html


My personal take - let them hire private security just like malls, companies, etc. They should not get their own police with immunity etc.

 

[PottedMeat]

Briarwood Presbyterian has a congregation of more than 4,000. Its giant complex also houses a K-12 school and a seminary.

so its like a regular college (religious) campus police force?

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

why? seriously, why? is there a lot of church on church crime in alabama?

 

[Victorian Gray]

why? seriously, why? is there a lot of church on church crime in alabama?

The raging sharias might attack at any moment.

 

[UberNeuman]

ah, when "Holy Rollers" takes on a new meaning.

 

[Humpy]

I almost forgot about Alabama.

It's good to see they're still around and doing whatever it is they do there.

 

[woolfe9998]

They are a private organization. They can hire private security just like anyone else.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Yep. Because when you're in church blathering on about how the invisible man in the sky is going to protect his flock the flock needs somebody that will actually show up if the shit hits the fan. They trust mall cops more than their god.

 

[Herr Kutz]

Sounds ridiculous until you realize north easterners and west-north westerners are arguing that a grown man should be legally recognized as a girl because he "feels like it".

 

[IronWing]

Sounds ridiculous until you realize north easterners and west-north westerners are arguing that a grown man should be legally recognized as a girl because he "feels like it".

And the thread jumps the median, makes a Blues Brothers Nazis in the sky flight, and lands in a pit.

 

[Sunburn74]

This has to be unconstitutional especially if the public's tax dollars are going to it. Even if found to be consitutional, eventually someone from the Satanists of Alabama or New Fraternal Order Of Hephaestus or something will request a police presence, be refused and then it'll go to the supreme court and a whole can of worms will be opened that people really don't opened.

 

[JSt0rm]

Sounds ridiculous until you realize north easterners and west-north westerners are arguing that a grown man should be legally recognized as a girl because he "feels like it".

look how dumb you are.

 

[pcgeek11]

Sounds like a lot is being made over nothing.

Some critics of the bill have questioned why the church and school need a police department, but it's essentially a way of hiring a police officer full-time, as opposed to relying on off-duty police officers to assist the church, Johnston said.

Johnston notes that the 4,100-member church has thousands of events at the church and school on weekdays, nights and weekends that require security.

The church currently hires off-duty officers from area police departments, but there aren't always enough officers available, Johnston said. "The trouble is finding people to be there on a continuous basis," Johnston said.

Johnston said he doesn't know of any other churches in Alabama that have their own police departments, but he said it's more similar to a small college having its own police department. The language of the bill echoes the language of the law allowing colleges to have their own police departments, he said.

Sounds like they are just starting up a "campus police force" just like most if not all colleges have. Also it seems they are not using state funds as it was stated in the article the Church is paying the police... I don't see the issue.

 

[NTMBK]

Sounds like a lot is being made over nothing.




Sounds like they are just starting up a "campus police force" just like most if not all colleges have. Also it seems they are not using state funds as it was stated in the article the Church is paying the police... I don't see the issue.

The police are an arm of the state, who enforce the law. Church run police is a violation of the separation of church and state.

 

[pcgeek11]

The police are an arm of the state, who enforce the law. Church run police is a violation of the separation of church and state.

Read the article. That isn't the way I read it.

The college police are not run by the state...

 

[sdifox]

Why should taxpayers subsidise the church any further?

Want armed guards? Hire armed guards.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Just doing the lord's work.

 

[Meghan54]

Read the article. That isn't the way I read it.

The college police are not run by the state...

Since college police in every university I've been to or heard of have been trained and are required to be trained by the local/state police academy and have enforcement and arrest powers exactly like other police jurisdictions in the same area, how are these not going to be sanctioned and run by the state?

Here are a pair of universities/colleges for examples....vastly different sizes and locales, yet both are what the Alabama church is proposing:

Northeastern big city college: Boston College....."Boston College Police derive their legal authority from Chapter 22C, Section 63, of the Massachusetts General Laws. This statute gives them the same policing authority, including the power of arrest, as Newton, Boston, and the State Police."

Small town southern college: Georgia Southern University....."Each officer has completed training mandated by the State of Georgia and is sworn to uphold the laws of the state. In addition, the officers are deputized by the Bulloch County Sheriff’s Department in the case their services are needed anywhere in Bulloch County."


Doubt you'd find many differences elsewhere.

 

[pcgeek11]

Since college police in every university I've been to or heard of have been trained and are required to be trained by the local/state police academy and have enforcement and arrest powers exactly like other police jurisdictions in the same area, how are these not going to be sanctioned and run by the state?

Here are a pair of universities/colleges for examples....vastly different sizes and locales, yet both are what the Alabama church is proposing:

Northeastern big city college: Boston College....."Boston College Police derive their legal authority from Chapter 22C, Section 63, of the Massachusetts General Laws. This statute gives them the same policing authority, including the power of arrest, as Newton, Boston, and the State Police."

Small town southern college: Georgia Southern University....."Each officer has completed training mandated by the State of Georgia and is sworn to uphold the laws of the state. In addition, the officers are deputized by the Bulloch County Sheriff’s Department in the case their services are needed anywhere in Bulloch County."

Doubt you'd find many differences elsewhere.

First do you have anything specific with respect to the Alabama Church / School. I am not going to waste my time reading about Boston College as they are in a different state which doesn't apply here. The Georgia Southern case sited above they are actually deputized by the county and can in fact be used as county deputies. So again not applicable. Here is what it says in the article since you obviously did not read it:

"We've got over 30,000 events a year that take place at Briarwood - going on all day, all night, at the school, at the church, at the seminary," Johnston said. "We have to hire policemen all the time. It would be so much easier to have someone on staff."

Johnston said he doesn't know of any other churches in Alabama that have their own police departments, but he said it's more similar to a small college having its own police department. "Briarwood is larger than most of the colleges that have police," he said.

The language of the bill echoes the language of the law allowing colleges to have their own police departments, he said.

Briarwood has two large campuses, with the church and Birmingham Theological Seminary off Acton Road at Interstate 459, and at the affiliated Briarwood Christian School on Cahaba Valley Road.

"It would only be for patrolling the campuses, north and south," Johnston said. "There wouldn't be any patrolling of neighborhoods."

The church currently hires off-duty officers from area police departments, but there aren't always enough officers available, Johnston said. "They get short-handed," he said. "We have one guy that we have to have almost full-time supervising security," he said.

The police department would essentially be that officer in a full-time position working for the church, he said.

It would not involve a jail or other facilities - basically an officer and an official car, he said. "I couldn't imagine it would be something more than that," Johnston said. "If there is an arrest on campus, the local jurisdiction would be called and they would come pick the person up."

Where does it say anything about working for the state, county or city. They already do and have been hiring off duty police to fill this role as needed. All this does is allow them to have a full time employee filling the security functions. If you have more factual information please share.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Churches should pay taxes, so the local community services can support them better

 

[pcgeek11]

Thanks for your opinion.

Maybe you should work towards changing the existing laws that provide them a tax free status.

 

[ch33zw1z]

No thanks, organized religion is detrimental to human progress.

 

[Meghan54]

pcgeek, what you just posted was exactly what my examples represent....state officials. If this officer isn't connected to the state, why does a law have to be passed by the Alabama legislature? I'm sure there are already mechanisms in place to allow organizations, institutions, etc., to hire security guards. So why does this law have to be passed? There certainly doesn't seem to be any prohibition to having security guards present there 24/7 if they want....but the church wants a police officer.

And probably more salient to the point you're trying to make, and flailing around doing so, is this first sentence in CNN's article linked above....that you failed to read:

The Alabama Senate voted Tuesday to allow Briarwood Presbyterian Church to hire fully deputized officers who would carry weapons and have the authority to make arrests.

So, if the full time hired officers are fully deputized, carry weapons and have arrest authority, what else do you call them other than state workers/agents?


Or maybe you missed this part of the article you chose to quote from, the linked AL. com article:

Alabama Senate Bill 193 says that the church "may appoint and employ one or more persons to act as police officers to protect the safety and integrity of the church and its ministries. Persons employed as police officers pursuant to this section shall be charged with all of the duties and invested with all of the powers of law enforcement officers in this state."

You see that "invested with all the powers of law enforcement officers in this state" part? That's a clue they'll be actors of the state, period.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Churches should pay taxes, so the local community services can support them better

Nah, then they get representation within the government, which is NOT something we want.

Better we educate the populace to stifle funding to organized religion, it pays dividends.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Nah, then they get representation within the government, which is NOT something we want.

Better we educate the populace to stifle funding to organized religion, it pays dividends.

Agreed.

Organized religion still gets a voice in the government, indirectly. Church goers vote