National Protest and 'disband the cops' discussion (please review page 1)

[policemedic]

I have stayed out of this thread, and the Defund the Police thread, because participating in either one could become problematic.

However, I do feel it necessary to correct some misunderstandings vis a vis the Postal Police in order that everyone can sing from the same sheet of music.

First, while the Postal Police are a division of the Postal Inspection Service, Postal Police Officers are not Postal Inspectors. Inspectors are 1811 Criminal Investigators; Postal Police Officers are 0083 Police Officers. Inspectors are plainclothes investigators; postal cops are uniformed LEOs. In this way, they function much like Secret Service Special Agents and the USSS Uniformed Division. There are 1200 Postal inspectors; I'm unsure of the number of postal cops.

President Trump's Postmaster General, Louis Dejoy, removed all law enforcement authority from Postal Police Officers - the only ones who patrol off-site into dangerous areas after-hours to protect postal workers in cities like Chicago - last month on August 25th, 2020.

I would say he didn't remove anything from them. He simply clarified their authority under the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act and brought their assignments back into alignment with the law.

USPIS has roughly 1200 officers. I don't know where you think they're "patrolling", because that isn't really their job, nor do they have real capacity to such a thing.

Correct. See above re: 1200 officers. Those 1200 Inspectors don't guard postal facilities; they do real police work.

Postal Police Officers, despite being vested with (limited) federal arrest authority, only complete an 8 week foundational training program. That is shorter than Army BCT. This falls well short of most proper police academies, and is only acceptable because they are not expected to do police work. They are expected to be guards with arrest authority.

As a former subcontractor for the USPS, 1997-2000, they did not patrol ANYWHERE. Those are postal inspectors who were classified as LEO's. Those are the guys and gals who investigate postal fraud. Their physical security was limited to the security of any postal facility.

As you say, BINGO. The only time I have seen a postal police officer off-site has been when they're getting coffee, or securing mail from a truck that was in an accident, blown up mailbox, etc.

...which I have shown is inaccurate and that they do have a 'real' capacity and authority to do it - or did.

The fact that some US Postal Police Officers were assigned to patrol--and I use that word very loosely--mail routes does not mean they had the authority to do it. In plain words, they do not, and never did. That much is clear from a full reading of the statute you correctly cited.

With all that said, I will now go back to lurking. I'm not going to engage on the main subject of the thread.

 

[Marauder06]

To cross post a bit; just like people who don't believe Trump said something until there is video, a police report that say "we knocked and announced, but no body cams lolz" is gonna get some doubt from me.

All things being equal, you don't think an official document signed by sworn peace officers is more meaningful than "anonymous sources?"

 

[Devildoc]

Even in our little meaningless state of North Carolina there have been gatherings about this whole thing in Louisville.....

 

[Locksteady]

However, I do feel it necessary to correct some misunderstandings vis a vis the Postal Police in order that everyone can sing from the same sheet of music.

First, while the Postal Police are a division of the Postal Inspection Service, Postal Police Officers are not Postal Inspectors. Inspectors are 1811 Criminal Investigators; Postal Police Officers are 0083 Police Officers. Inspectors are plainclothes investigators; postal cops are uniformed LEOs. In this way, they function much like Secret Service Special Agents and the USSS Uniformed Division. There are 1200 Postal inspectors; I'm unsure of the number of postal cops.

This is a useful insertion that should help prevent other posters from continuing to conflate PPOs with Postal Inspectors.

I would say he didn't remove anything from them. He simply clarified their authority under the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act and brought their assignments back into alignment with the law.

I would say he did. My corrected quote, which you didn't use, is the following:

President Trump's Postmaster General, Louis Dejoy, removed all law enforcement authority from Postal Police Officers outside of real estate owned or leased by the US Postal Service.

This is an accurate description of what happened, and constitutes a removal of these authorities as recognized by Congress in 18 USC 1306(c).

As you say, BINGO. The only time I have seen a postal police officer off-site has been when they're getting coffee, or securing mail from a truck that was in an accident, blown up mailbox, etc.

PPOs not only conducted off-site patrols but increased those patrols within the last two decades, on admission from the actual authorities on the practice: PPOs and the Postal Service itself.

Dejoy removed this and other powers by restricting the law enforcement jurisdiction recognized in 18 USC 1306(c) to real estate owned or leased by the US Postal Service.

 

[Hungry_Dog]

Escalation in Louisville. Unsurprising with the last videos of officers being fired upon over the last week or two.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1308926980159664129

 

[Kraut783]

No word on LMPD officer condition...FBI Louisville SWAT responded to assist....

Officer shot at Brook Street and Broadway

 

[policemedic]

18 USC 1306(c)

Are you sure you're citing the right statute? That one reads, "Whoever knowingly violates section 5136A [1] of the Revised Statutes of the United States, section 9A of the Federal Reserve Act, or section 20 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both. "

In any case, the controlling statute is the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. The jurisdiction of the Postal Police is clearly set out:


SEC. 1001. EMPLOYMENT OF POSTAL POLICE OFFICERS. Section 3061 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following: `(c)(1) The Postal Service may employ police officers for duty in connection with the protection of property owned or occupied by the Postal Service or under the charge and control of the Postal Service, and persons on that property, including duty in areas outside the property to the extent necessary to protect the property and persons on the property. `(2) With respect to such property, such officers shall have the power to-- `(A) enforce Federal laws and regulations for the protection of persons and property; `(B) carry firearms; and `(C) make arrests without a warrant for any offense against the Unites States committed in the presence of the officer or for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States if the officer has reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing a felony. `(3) With respect to such property, such officers may have, to such extent as the Postal Service may by regulations prescribe, the power to-- `(A) serve warrants and subpoenas issued under the authority of the United States; and `(B) conduct investigations, on and off the property in question, of offenses that may have been committed against property owned or occupied by the Postal Service or persons on the property. `(4)(A) As to such property, the Postmaster General may prescribe regulations necessary for the protection and administration of property owned or occupied by the Postal Service and persons on the property. The regulations may include reasonable penalties, within the limits prescribed in subparagraph (B), for violations of the regulations. The regulations shall be posted and remain posted in a conspicuous place on the property. `(B) A person violating a regulation prescribed under this subsection shall be fined under this title, imprisoned for not more than 30 days, or both.'.

Nowhere in the statute is there listed any hint of contemplation of general police power on the public streets, outside of an allowance that permits them to stand on the sidewalk/sit in a car outside the postal facility.

Locksteady said:

President Trump's Postmaster General, Louis Dejoy, removed all law enforcement authority from Postal Police Officers outside of real estate owned or leased by the US Postal Service.

This is an accurate description of what happened, and constitutes a removal of these authorities as recognized by Congress in 18 USC 1306(c).

Not really, because they never had the authority to begin with. The fact that they were doing it is irrelevant. Even the Deputy Chief Postal Inspector admitted he didn't know if they had jurisdiction outside the post office, and that's quite telling.

Frankly, you don't want postal police officers acting as municipal cops. That would be bad mojo.

 

[Cookie_]

All things being equal, you don't think an official document signed by sworn peace officers is more meaningful than "anonymous sources?"

A few years ago I would have agreed, but after seeing incidents like The Baltimore Officer caught planting drugs on his own body cam, I tend not to trust the official reports right away in situations like this.

Neighbors, the victims, etc verifying it hold more weight for me.

 

[Kraut783]

No word on LMPD officer condition...FBI Louisville SWAT responded to assist....

Officer shot at Brook Street and Broadway

looks like two officers were shot, one in surgery...but both are stable...one subject in custody

 

[ThunderHorse]

What a crazy headline:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1308845531586756610

 

[Locksteady]

Are you sure you're citing the right statute? That one reads, "Whoever knowingly violates section 5136A [1] of the Revised Statutes of the United States, section 9A of the Federal Reserve Act, or section 20 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both. "

Thank you for checking - it indeed was a typo. The correct code is 3061, which you were also considerate enough to include in your post, and I appreciate you doing that as well.

Not really, because they never had the authority to begin with. The fact that they were doing it is irrelevant.

I ran through several different interpretations of 'property', how it is used within the Postal Service, and how specifically it seems to be interpreted in the context of this part of the code.

Firstly, the Postal Police Officer position has since its inception in 1970 exercised law enforcement authority in regards to off-estate compromises to mail delivery and the safety of its employees. This is ultimately irrelevant if the current statues don't explicitly support this statement, but feeds into part of the PPOA's argument in the case.

Secondly, property certainly seems to include everything from real estate to mail trucks to the mail itself, and the wording on nearly every Postal Police description I can find includes some iteration of exercising arrest authorities during mail-in-transit or assaults on USPS personnel outside of USPS real estate. This also apparently includes handbooks internal to USPIS that explicitly mention in-transit protection for mail and personnel as among the duties of PPOs.

The PPOA is arguing that Congress, being aware of these duties practiced by PPOs for decades, did not intend to restrict those practiced authorities when they wrote the law, and that this is reflected in the legislative history. However, all I can find are changes from "buildings and areas owned or occupied by the Postal Service or under the charge and control of the Postal Service" to "property" replacing "buildings and areas". PPOs meanwhile openly and even with citations exercised law enforcement authority off-property even while these initial pushes towards the current legislation were floating around in the 1990s.

I can believe that Congress was aware of what PPOs did in practice, and I can also definitely believe that these practices could have become such a widespread ongoing industry norm that an agency head suddenly halting it would be a shock. However, I am now not convinced as I previously was that the language is pliant enough to hamstring DeJoy if he wants to limit PPO LE authority to the USPS real estate and outside areas only in support of the real estate and its personnel only.

This is probably one of the weakest parts of their suit.

@compforce, consider that a long-winded way of saying I have come to agree with you on this point.

The fact that they were doing it is irrelevant.

Assuming the above holds, agreed.

Even the Deputy Chief Postal Inspector admitted he didn't know if they had jurisdiction outside the post office, and that's quite telling.

This beautifully illustrates the disparity in the way that different leaders within the agency understand the range of authority given to PPOs.

According the PPOA, a head of Postal Police Officers apparently said during court in 2016 to “Think of them as a fully functioning police department whose responsibilities are security for postal facilities, protection of postal employees, protection of the mail in transit, preventing the use of mails for illegitimate purposes, mailing child pornography, mailing drugs through the mail.”

If anything, DeJoy's timely decision to enforce the law by halting afterhours mail transit and personnel protections ahead of a mail-in-ballot-heavy voting season is a shrewd but ostensibly legally supported move.

Frankly, you don't want postal police officers acting as municipal cops. That would be bad mojo.

Given that they've apparently been exercising law enforcement powers outside of USPS real estate for 50 years now, I think it's safe to say that that mojo is not a thing in practice, considering how sparingly that multiple USPS-adjacent people on this very thread have even encountered them to the point of openly doubting they even practiced in that capacity.

I also think if Congress decided to formally recognize in law what they've apparently been doing for 50 years that it wouldn't be unfeasible to add extremely restrictive language to that to keep their powers from becoming an ongoing municipal jurisdiction problem - assuming they even grow the ranks to make that a possibility.

 

[Locksteady]

^ That should have been a cite to @policemedic - apologies, @compforce!

 

[Jaknight]

Seattle: Antifa rioters assault a cop who was knocked to the ground from his bicycle. A person then uses a metal bat to strike him on the head. This is in the middle of the former “CHAZ.” #SeattleRiots #antifa #BLM https://t.co/34cTbUoE9U

— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) September 24, 2020

 

[Devildoc]

My fair town had some rowdiness last night:

At least 40 businesses vandalized during Breonna Taylor protests in Durham :: WRAL.com

The "news article" had a cringe-worthy comment: "Taylor, an emergency medical worker, was shot in March multiple times by white officers who entered her home during a narcotics investigation." (She had not been in EMS since 2017, plus glossing over key details about the event).

Disclaimer: Broken record time: people do not care about facts or truth; only what fits their narrative.

 

[Cookie_]

She had not been in EMS since 2017

I know she was an an ER technician; I know where I'm at that requires maintaining at minimum EMT-B with IV cert.

I'd still probably call her an EMT/EMS worker for the sake of simplicity.

 

[Devildoc]

I know she was an an ER technician; I know where I'm at that requires maintaining at minimum EMT-B with IV cert.

I'd still probably call her an EMT/EMS worker for the sake of simplicity.

I get your point, and though I kinda sorta agree, the omission of "former" ('emergency medical worker') makes wonder at what point do titles and jobs mean anything in accurate reporting (types the Navy officer....though I have been out for years....)...

 

[BlackSmokeRisinG]

^She was a fuckin' crack dealers bitch who held on to his stash....

 

[BlackSmokeRisinG]

Read it and weep.

Law Enforcement Today

 

[ThunderHorse]

Read it and weep.

Law Enforcement Today

Yeah, that report is intense. But it doesn't matter...she was just some innocent ER Tech who's never sold drugs or been surveilled for anything worse. Just keep reading the FAKE NEWS.

 

[Ooh-Rah]

^She was a fuckin' crack dealers bitch who held on to his stash....

Ya know...we can (and do) use pretty much any language we want here, but referring to someone who was killed the way she was, and from many reliable accounts someone who really was trying to better herself as, “a fuckin' crack dealers bitch who held on to his stash....”

I don’t know man. It just seems to inaccurately sum up a significantly more complicated story.