Full-time Guardsman volunteers as Pulaski County sheriff's deputy

Pulaski County Daily News ^ | 7/30/2009 | Matthew J. Wilson/Missouri National Guard Public Affairs

[darrellmaurina]

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (July 30, 2009) — Assisting others is a way of life for 1st Lt. Nathan Looper. As a member of the Missouri Air National Guard, Looper, 31, has served on the 7th Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team on post for more than seven years. In that same span, he has spent his spare time volunteering as a reserve deputy/K-9 officer with the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Department. “I enjoy helping other people and that’s the biggest reason that I’m in the military doing this job or my civilian law-enforcement life,” said Looper, a Lynchburg resident. “Public safety has pretty-much always been part of my life.”

[T-Bird45]

While it is nice that he has a strong commitment to his community, it is probably not smart for the sheriff's office to have him as a reserve due to Posse Comitatus issues with any arrest he makes. Additionally, holding a dual commission at two different levels of government is generally not done.

[darrellmaurina]

T-Bird, without getting into the wisdom of Posse Comitatus issues, operating at two levels of government is fairly common around here.

Fort Leonard Wood is the home of the Military Police School, and because of that, a fair number of senior NCOs in the Army choose to obtain their civilian police commissions in preparation for their post-retirement civilian careers, and they work as unpaid reserve police officers or deputies in local departments to gain experience in how civilian police do things. (The same thing is also sometimes done for people who are leaving the Army without retiring, and some of them also do that mid-career because they want to be more effective in missions that require civilian policing experience, such as what we’re doing in Iraq with rebuilding their police forces.)

The reverse is true as well. Quite a significant number of people who can’t afford to stay in civilian law enforcement at the low pay that’s common in Missouri choose to go to Fort Leonard Wood to work as gate guards or civilian instructors in the MP School, and they keep their civilian commissions to volunteer as unpaid reserve deputies or police officers.

This may be good or bad, but it’s fairly common around here.