The bill that will stop problem police officers from moving from department to department now has the backing of two prominent police officer associations.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The bill that will stop problem police officers from moving from department to department now has the backing of two prominent police officer associations.
The West Virginia Troopers Association and the West Virginia Sheriffs' Association are both backing a rewritten version of the bill that would suspend an officer's certification upon his departure from a police department. Before he could sign on with another department, the state would review and decide whether to reactivate his certification.
"I think this will instill more public confidence in law enforcement," said Hancock County Sheriff Mike White, president of the Sheriffs' Association. "This will help weed out unsavory officers. It's a good positive thing and it's going to be a benefit to communities across the state."
The revised bill will go before the full Senate on second reading Monday.
The original bill would have required police departments to report problems with officers to a central database, and then for departments to check that database before hiring an officer.
The revised bill requires officers who move from one department to another to sign a waiver allowing the subcommittee to review their personnel file with that previous department before reauthorizing their police officer certification. It also requires the subcommittee to keep the database of all certified officers, which would be available to all departments.
Both versions of the bill give the Law Enforcement Professional Standards Subcommittee -- formerly known as the Law Enforcement Training Subcommittee -- subpoena powers to investigate problem officers that come to their attention.
"We've been working with them [legislators] to make sure the bill does what it intends to do," said John Smith, president of the Troopers Association. "Before, the bill didn't clarify what it wanted to do."
Smith said he felt that the revised bill would stop officers from jumping from one department to another after getting into trouble.
In December, the Sunday Gazette-Mail reported that an examination of 14 years worth of state data showed at least 166 officers have held jobs with more than four departments in West Virginia.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The bill that will stop problem police officers from moving from department to department now has the backing of two prominent police officer associations.
The West Virginia Troopers Association and the West Virginia Sheriffs' Association are both backing a rewritten version of the bill that would suspend an officer's certification upon his departure from a police department. Before he could sign on with another department, the state would review and decide whether to reactivate his certification.
"I think this will instill more public confidence in law enforcement," said Hancock County Sheriff Mike White, president of the Sheriffs' Association. "This will help weed out unsavory officers. It's a good positive thing and it's going to be a benefit to communities across the state."
The revised bill will go before the full Senate on second reading Monday.
The original bill would have required police departments to report problems with officers to a central database, and then for departments to check that database before hiring an officer.
The revised bill requires officers who move from one department to another to sign a waiver allowing the subcommittee to review their personnel file with that previous department before reauthorizing their police officer certification. It also requires the subcommittee to keep the database of all certified officers, which would be available to all departments.
Both versions of the bill give the Law Enforcement Professional Standards Subcommittee -- formerly known as the Law Enforcement Training Subcommittee -- subpoena powers to investigate problem officers that come to their attention.
"We've been working with them [legislators] to make sure the bill does what it intends to do," said John Smith, president of the Troopers Association. "Before, the bill didn't clarify what it wanted to do."
Smith said he felt that the revised bill would stop officers from jumping from one department to another after getting into trouble.
In December, the Sunday Gazette-Mail reported that an examination of 14 years worth of state data showed at least 166 officers have held jobs with more than four departments in West Virginia.
There are 14 departments that have each hired at least 10 of the 166 officers that moved around the most.
Smithers, Montgomery, Shinnston, Mount Hope and Cedar Grove combined have hired those officers at least 80 times.
In the past two years, the Gazette-Mail has shown that at least 13 West Virginia officers who have left one department under a cloud of allegations have found work at another department. Several of those officers moved through the 14 departments.
Officers sometimes get in serious trouble with one department, then leave before being fired, said Sen. Bill Laird, D-Fayette, one of the co-sponsors and driving forces behind the bill. If passed, the legislation would give the subcommittee the ability to investigate why they left and, if need be, stop them from being employed somewhere else, he said.
"This will let the subcommittee to fully scrutinize a person's departure prior to re-employment with another agency ... to find out why they left," he said.
Laird provided a copy of the revised bill, along with an estimate of the additional costs for the subcommittee. Currently, the additional costs to the state are estimated at about $180,000. That estimate includes the addition of a full-time investigator for the department, a full-time administrative assistant and a secretary, along with additional office costs and database maintenance.
One of the problems police agencies have had in the past is that when another department asks them about an officer that used to be employed in their department, they had to be very careful about what they said because of employment laws.
This will allow departments to give one another a better picture of former employees, White said.
"They think, 'Well I'm just going to resign here and go somewhere else,' when the heat gets on them," White said. "Then they go somewhere else and you can't discuss personnel.... When there's a personnel issue, you're going to get sued. I think this changes a lot of that. I think this is a big positive for West Virginia."
Reach Gary Harki at gha...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5163.
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