Out small town use to have town cops. They dropped those a few years ago. A Sheriff's car will drive around a bit.

Badges? Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges!



Spread thin sheriff's dept here. Could be an hour or more in response time.

I reckon I'll fill in when needed, and call them to come clean the mess up.

We had a "town marshall" when I was a kid. I don't know how much "marshalling" he ever did as he had other duties as well, one of which was garbage collector. As I got older, we had a "night watchman" who filled the role of "town cop". One exciting day we got to see him mace a muskrat that had come up through the storm sewer and was hiding under a car. As you said, eventually the town contracted with the county for law enforcement and one of the deputies lived in town. As an aside, Dad was the "town marshall" in Varina back in 1940 when he and Mom ran a cafe there.

Our county sheriff is a good one. So are the officers I have talked to. There is a police force in the nearest town to us and I don't know how many officers they have these days. In the old days they all wore western themed uniforms like the officer in the photo above. These days they wear black and look like a bunch of swat team guys. Nothing against swat teams but I prefer the western look. At least a cowboy hat.

State patrol in our area wear smokey the bear hats and are all good guys from what I gather talking to them at the gas station.

Lots of drugs come down the Interstate and they make a lot of arrests for those or so it says in the local paper.

We have county Sheriffs, but usually only two deputies are patrolling an area roughly ten miles by twenty miles.Unless we get lucky and one is close,it is usually at least a half hour before they will get here.
Unless it is a violent crime,they want t you to file a report online and a deputy will contact you in 48 hours ( sometimes)

stantdm,

Since Sheriff Salazar took office, Bexar County deputies are in western hats & boots with their sheriff's uniforms, so it's not just "small towns" her ein TX that wear western attire.

yours, tex

We have cops in some of the bigger towns.
Frankly, they sort of scare me. Barney Fife types. Woulda been a State Cop, but couldn't.
Badge and a gun, big attitude.
Don't give them and chance.

Sherrif and Deputies, other than court papers and move inmates,
I have no idea what they do. Well, pistol permits, but that's the office girls.

Now the cities, Altoona, they have professional police.
And real crimes also.

I was a small town cop for 5 years back in my youth. We had 4 full time officers and three part time. I was one of the part timers. We covered 17 square miles with a population of 11,000. We were also back up for the sheriff's department as were they for us. We also regularly dealt with the State Patrol and Game Wardens on many occasions.

We had the typical small time crime for the most part; vandalism, theft from auto, drunk driving, drugs, domestics, bar fights, etc. Serious crimes were more common than one would think, in the 5 years I was there we had two murders, 5 manslaughter cases, and a handful of shootings per year. The most interesting crimes were one in cooperation with U.S. Postal Inspectors involving possible child porn and evolving to drug distribution. The other notable case was a BDSM/dominatrix "establishment". It didn't run for long, not much is secret for long in a small town, but it did draw a few local notables.

Most of our small town police departments were closed down due to funding...no one cares as they were mostly an extortion racket...all they ever did was speeding tickets ..

Out little town (pop 1000 or so) has a police force.

As we are also the county seat, the Sheriff is also located in town.


The city force is generally 4 or so.


Full staff on the Sheriff is 8 or 9 I think.


For the MOST part, the city cops also act like they have to live in this town.

The county is 4020 square miles.

Half the population is Indian, and they have their own police on the rez.


About 3000 white guys and 3001 Indians.

Most of the small town cops I've seen would make Barney Fife look good.