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The Sussex County Police Chiefs Council voted unanimously to censure the county sheriff, stating that his law enforcement activities are detrimental to the county.
Chief William Topping, chairman of the council, said the letter came out of a brewing controversy over the power of the sheriff’s department.
“The Sussex County Chiefs Council has voted to censure the actions of the Sussex County Sheriff as being counterproductive to Sussex County law enforcement and public safety interest by overstepping his authority in an attempt to conduct law enforcement activities in Sussex County,” reads the statement released by the council.
Topping said the members of the council say they don’t need the sheriff’s department to aid in any law enforcement functions.
“We agree that the liability generated by his possible presence at an incident is detrimental to our enforcement activities and detrimental to the county because of possible litigation,” said Topping. “He and his deputies are not trained as police officers and should not act as police officers.”
Rep. Pete Schwartzkopf, D-Rehoboth Beach, has proposed legislation to define the powers of the sheriff. Sen. George Bunting, D-Bethany Beach is co-sponsoring the legislation.
Schwartzkopf said the proposed bill was prompted by several incidents where the sheriff and his deputies acted as law enforcement officers. He said these actions could be a liability for the county.
The bill, sent out of committee two weeks ago, states that the sheriff is not a law enforcement officer and should not perform any duties that fall under the category of police officers. It is an attempt to bring two mismatched laws together, said Schwartzkopf. It is not an attempt to reduce the powers of the sheriff or his department, he said.
Sheriff Bob Reed called the legislation unnecessary but said he will wait and see what happens if it does go to a vote. Jeff Christopher, a deputy in the sheriff’s department and the president of the Sussex County Fraternal Order of Police, also voiced his support for the sheriff.
“I just think it’s a bad piece of legislation,” said Reed. “But we’ll see what happens in the next few weeks.”
The bill, however, has run into a Republican party roadblock, Schwartzkopf said. After being released from committee, it was put on the House agenda but later dropped off the agenda by request of members of the Republican party.
“The sheriff is a Republican elected official,” said Schwartzkopf. “This might be an effort to protect him.”
Schwartzkopf said he plans to talk to House Majority Leader Wayne Smith, R-Wilmington, to get the bill back on the agenda so it can go before the House for debate.
“I fully expect to have it debated by the entire House,” Schwartzkopf said.
Rep. Joe Booth, R-Georgetown, said House Republicans discussed the bill during caucus, but decided it wasn’t worth the time it would take to debate it on the floor.
“We didn’t think it was worthy of the distraction it would cause,” said Booth.
“We’ve only got two weeks left and we all have bills we are working on. This one was kind of rushed through and we wanted to slow down and think about it,” he added.
Booth said the sheriff went to Dover and talked to some of the leadership about his side of the issue.
“There is passion on both sides of this issue,” said Booth. “[Reed’s] been in there for three years and it’s a four-year term. If he’s doing things he’s not supposed to do, then there is a process for that. Deal with it in November.”
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