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And just for a contrary point of view, the reason you do not want the school district police restricted to the campus is that they know the kids and the education code better than the city officers (who should get to know the people in their area also, but...). The school police can make the truancy arrests much easier than the city police as one example of their need for off campus jurisdiction.

And of course, the school police can help back up the city PD in a real emergency, thus letting the city get away with a few less officers and slightly lower budget. Obviously, you pay for it in school taxes anyway, but until we fix the whole school district boundary problems (crossing city and county lines), and then the multiple (37 or so) types of cops in Texas, we really just shift money around to different governments for duplication of effort. I have my solutions, but they are unpopular in politics.

sjfcontrol wrote:Why does a school need ANY police? And especially why should they have any power once off school property?

Why don't schools just use the regular police? (Or are school cops kinda like Paul Blart -- mall cop? )

Schools need police because we have criminals in school and as parents. They prefer to have an officer on campus. They could use city or county officers, if the agency would agree to station them just at the school, and some do. Luling PD, for example, has one officer assigned to the schools alone. Of course, the high school has less than 400 students and even if he does go across town for some reason he is less than 4 minutes from the school.

But every school district in Texas is legally allowed to have their own police department. The interesting fact is that every university or college is also allowed to have their own police department. That includes private schools like Rice and religious schools like Baylor and Our Lady of the Lake. All of these departments do have full police powers and are certified peace officers.

When we talk about what is the jurisdiction of these officers, we are really asking where they are allowed to write traffic tickets. For everything else, all cops in the state have the same authority statewide.

And I apologize to all for how far off topic this has drifted, especially from the subject of firearms. I should not have gotten this deep into this subject, though I do find it interesting, and I will no post more on this area in this thread. If you want to learn more about who are cops and who can have them, read Chapter 2 of the Code of Criminal Procedures. To learn more about cop's AND CITIZEN'S arrest authorities, read Chapter 14 of the CCP. You might find it interesting.

gigag04,

What trdvet is pointing out is one of the flaws in Texas law. If you look at jurisdiction for the courts, the term is clearly defined based on the type of offenses each can here. But if you look for the definition of the word "jurisdiction" as it applies to an officer, there is no such animal. So, the arrest authorities say an officer outside of his jurisdiction may only do certain things but never say where his jurisdiction is to be outside of. There used to be the argument that an officer's jurisdiction is the state since he is licensed by the state. This still shows in CCP 14.01 where it explicitly states an officer may make the arrest and never places any limit on the geography. The term came into definition based on a court case in the 70's, which stated that an officer had authority in the county his agency was in. This was accepted and went unquestioned for a couple decades. Then the legislature changed the law to stop the out of county cops from running radar (CCP 14.03). But they never said what the jurisdiction was. And of course, a smart lawyer came up with the defense that the traffic stop was illegal because the officer was outside his city. The argument made was that when the legislature rewrote this law, they clearly intended to keep municipal officers in their cities only. The prosecutor never thought of arguing (I guess never thought because he did not mention it) that the legislature never defined jurisdiction because they relied on the case law definition. So, in the Kurtz case, the Court of Criminal Appeals again defined jurisdiction and limited it to the city limits. The legislature responded in the next session by adding in the part about having authority in the county.

Now we have the question next of what a school district officer's jurisdiction is, as well as a water officer (say LCRA Rangers) and a bunch of other agencies that are somewhere in between. Does the school district officer (or college officer) have authority only on the campus or anywhere in the taxing entity or anywhere in the county the taxing entity is in or state wide?

I would just claim my arrest authority came from 14.01 and see what the defense does then. I pointed this out to a former prosecutor once who agreed that it could make for a very interesting case when you can specify exactly where your arrest authority came from and it was not where the defense thought it was.

gregthehand wrote:Officers outside their jurisdiction can not enforce traffic violations. They have to be in their city if they are local police, or county if they are SO or Constables office. Also a deputy constable can write a traffic ticket anywhere in the county.

Sorry to make this convoluted but I thought this had been cleared up already. Police officers can write traffic tickets anywhere in their county (or counties if their city crosses county lines).

Article 14.03(g) of the Code of Criminal Procedure states:

Art. 14.03. AUTHORITY OF PEACE OFFICERS.
(g)(1) A peace officer listed in Subdivision (1), (2), or (5), Article 2.12, who is licensed under Chapter 1701, Occupations Code, and is outside of the officer's jurisdiction may arrest without a warrant a person who commits any offense within the officer's presence or view, other than a violation of Subtitle C, Title 7, Transportation Code.

(2) A peace officer listed in Subdivision (3), Article 2.12, who is licensed under Chapter 1701, Occupations Code, and is outside of the officer's jurisdiction may arrest without a warrant a person who commits any offense within the officer's presence or view, except that an officer described in this subdivision who is outside of that officer's jurisdiction may arrest a person for a violation of Subtitle C, Title 7, Transportation Code, only if the offense is committed in the county or counties in which the municipality employing the peace officer is located.

Art. 2.12 says:

Art. 2.12. WHO ARE PEACE OFFICERS. The following are peace officers:

(1) sheriffs, their deputies, and those reserve deputies who hold a permanent peace officer license issued under Chapter 1701, Occupations Code;

(2) constables, deputy constables, and those reserve deputy constables who hold a permanent peace officer license issued under Chapter 1701, Occupations Code;

(3) marshals or police officers of an incorporated city, town, or village, and those reserve municipal police officers who hold a permanent peace officer license issued under Chapter 1701, Occupations Code;

(4) rangers and officers commissioned by the Public Safety Commission and the Director of the Department of Public Safety;

(5) investigators of the district attorneys', criminal district attorneys', and county attorneys' offices;

The Transportation Code shows:

TRANSPORTATION CODE

TITLE 7. VEHICLES AND TRAFFIC

SUBTITLE C. RULES OF THE ROAD

Since local police officers are under Article 2.12(3), clearly from 14.03(g)(2) they can write the tickets outside their jurisdiction if they are anywhere in their county.

For more information on the arrest authorities (especialyl if the officer knows to claim his authority under 14.01 instead of 14.03) or who are peace officers (all 37 types), please see the full Code of Criminal Procedure. For the types of violations that tickets can be written for, please see the full Transportation Code (it is way too long to quote here). The official state web site for statutes is:
http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
And they promise to have it updated with the latest versions of the laws this month sometime.

Yes, it is illegal to cut across private property to avoid an intersection. And technically, even to drive across the parking lot of another business as was done by the OP.

Transportation Code Section 545.423. CROSSING PROPERTY.
(a) An operator may not cross a sidewalk or drive through a driveway, parking lot, or business or residential entrance without stopping the vehicle.
(b) An operator may not cross or drive in or on a sidewalk, driveway, parking lot, or business or residential entrance at an intersection to turn right or left from one highway to another highway.