Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 cuda1179 wrote:


My cousin does detective work. He says almost all of it is sitting and waiting. Usually that's waiting to take a pic of a cheater or someone milking disability. Some of it is simply looking for people when the client's seach-fu is weak. He said a number of people he's tracked down over the years he's used nothing more than an afternoon with public databases and Facebook. Finding the Maltese Falcon isn't in his wheelhouse.

The old detective stories (and some of the modern ones) use proof of adultery as a hook that leads to unforeseen complications.

"I thought I was staking out a motel for a cheater, but then..."

In truth, much of the work is remarkably unglamorous.

Even the Pinkertons are not all that. Strikebreakers in the 19th century involved Gatling guns and miners' militias. Ringing the doorbell and intimidating a nerd over a prematurely-mailed Magic card is just not as cool.

 cuda1179 wrote:
In Omaha, Nebraska there is a small island of land (mostly half of a strip mall) that technically was never incorporated into the city. Most people don't know about it, and the local news found out that a majority of the shopkeepers there didn't know they were illegally collecting city tax revenue from customers.

It's also a haven from the city's "diner's tax". From what I've been able to dig up, it's also not within the jurisdiction of the local police, nor is the northbound traffic in the nearby road (Southbound IS city).

I'd love to see someone get a ticket there and fight it on jurisdiction grounds.

I believe there's a similar situation with Yellowstone National Park. There's a small area where it's "technically legal to murder someone" or whatever because it diesnt fall under any relevant legal jurisdiction.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
In Omaha, Nebraska there is a small island of land (mostly half of a strip mall) that technically was never incorporated into the city. Most people don't know about it, and the local news found out that a majority of the shopkeepers there didn't know they were illegally collecting city tax revenue from customers.

It's also a haven from the city's "diner's tax". From what I've been able to dig up, it's also not within the jurisdiction of the local police, nor is the northbound traffic in the nearby road (Southbound IS city).

I'd love to see someone get a ticket there and fight it on jurisdiction grounds.

I believe there's a similar situation with Yellowstone National Park. There's a small area where it's "technically legal to murder someone" or whatever because it diesnt fall under any relevant legal jurisdiction.

I saw a video about that, it’s even weirder; it’s Federal land, but it was designated before the state borders were properly mapped, which means that it falls under a different state to the majority of Yellowstone, but is outside of any designated county (or populated county, can’t remember). So if you commit a state crime (the infamous murder, for instance), you can still be arrested, but the state law/constitution says you have to be charged and tried in the county, but this can’t happen because there’s no county court with jurisdiction over that area, and the state law doesn’t have any provision to escalate it to the next level of jurisdiction. Just don’t kidnap your victim, as that’s a federal crime and you bypass the loophole and end up straight in federal court…

 Jadenim wrote:
I saw a video about that, it’s even weirder; it’s Federal land, but it was designated before the state borders were properly mapped, which means that it falls under a different state to the majority of Yellowstone, but is outside of any designated county (or populated county, can’t remember). So if you commit a state crime (the infamous murder, for instance), you can still be arrested, but the state law/constitution says you have to be charged and tried in the county, but this can’t happen because there’s no county court with jurisdiction over that area, and the state law doesn’t have any provision to escalate it to the next level of jurisdiction. Just don’t kidnap your victim, as that’s a federal crime and you bypass the loophole and end up straight in federal court…

Today I learned there's a tiny sliver of Minnesota that exists as a coastal enclave in Canada because the 1783 treaty ending the Revolutionary War had an inaccurate map and when people got on site, that was the closest thing they could find that matched the description in the treaty. Much of it is an Indian reservation.

See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Roberts,_Washington which resulted from similar map error.

There are also some borders that fluctuate because they are defined by a river, and rivers migrate back and forth.

 Grey Templar wrote:
There are also some borders that fluctuate because they are defined by a river, and rivers migrate back and forth.

These can get a bit spicy politically if an island forms in the river. I think there is such an example between Spain and France that required a treaty.

Just to further confuse non-Americans, there is another governmental body that we haven't address yet: school districts.

In the U.S. "public school" means taxpayer-funded, and there are a variety of mechanisms used to achieve this, usually some form of property tax.

School districts do not necessarily conform to other boundaries, and they have their own elected officials and (depending on the state) taxing authority. They can even have a law enforcement function.

Because they are entirely dependent on student population, district boundaries will shift from time to time, often swallowing up multiple municipalities, and there can be these wonderful pie fights over taxes, building closures, bus routes between school board and city councils.

In Michigan, school districts may even represent unincorporated communities. For example, just down the road from me is Okemos (named after a Tribal chief when this area was settled). There is no government of Okemos, no elected council or anything like that, it is simply a school district and a post office, but it has thousands residents within its boundaries.

Next to Okemos is Haslett, which is likewise a school district and post office. Both are part of Meridian Township, but still very distinct places.

 Grey Templar wrote:
A county will generally have more than 1 city inside of it. Each of which may or may not have their own police force. Usually only the smallest of towns(towns are the same as cities legally speaking) won't have any law enforcement of their own, in which case they'll be reliant on the Sheriff's department.

Where I live, one of the main points of "incorporating" into a city/town (under the legal framework/definition of city/town in the state) is that an incorporated town must have its own police. So you get areas where people refer to a place as a city, but it is unincorporated county land.

But yes, the US is a patchwork organization wherein you have a general hierarchy of city -> county -> state. Obviously some states use different names for each item within their state laws (including that some dont even see themselves as states, they claim the title of Commonwealth)

Sometimes that form and function can be a bit fuzzy. I live in an unincorporated (county controlled) area, so county sheriffs office deputies are nominally supposed to do all the work a city cop would do. Traffic enforcement on up to capital crimes investigation. The unfortunate thing with that is, due to things that aren't to be discussed on this forum, they intentionally ignore large aspects of their duties and use half assed excuses to explain why they aren't doing what the voters have been demanding of them for years.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Sometimes that form and function can be a bit fuzzy. I live in an unincorporated (county controlled) area, so county sheriffs office deputies are nominally supposed to do all the work a city cop would do. Traffic enforcement on up to capital crimes investigation. The unfortunate thing with that is, due to things that aren't to be discussed on this forum, they intentionally ignore large aspects of their duties and use half assed excuses to explain why they aren't doing what the voters have been demanding of them for years.

And there are situations where the localities have vastly different politics, which complicates law enforcement and other activities. The most obvious example of this was how the outlying jurisdictions canceled their mutual aid agreements with the City of Portland, Oregon because of how offenders were treated. Portland would ask for assistance during civil disturbances, officers would assist, arrest offenders, who were then let go or given very lenient punishment.

This offended the sensibilities of the outlying areas, so they refused to render aid. This is an extreme example, of course, and the norm is for the overlapping entities to cooperate, but there is no requirement that they do so.

 cuda1179 wrote:
The jurisdiction hierarchy goes like this: Federal police (several varients), State Police, County Sheriff, Local police. Each is , generally a smaller area of land, and the higher up agencies can enforce laws in lower area jurisdiction as well (generally).

Of course, then you have oddities of jurisdiction, like Post Offices established before 1940. Most of those, while being inside a city, are technically NOT city land and are only under the jurisdiction of Federal Authorities. You could literally walk in and start cooking Meth and local police don't have any power to stop you, they'd have to (technically) call in Federal Authorities.

Feds can’t enforce state laws unless deputized. Furthermore, “regular” cops and deputies can be marshalized and minimized as Task Force Officers to have both state and federal law enforcement powers. This is 99% because they are on special teams but it happens all the time.

Sheriff is a political officer who is elected by the people. Technically at least in my state they have state wide jurisdiction to enforce arrests, but don’t due to obvious reasons. A lot of them don’t actually police but do warrants, jails, and court stuff. Policing is done by us. The chief of police is chosen by a county executive and or city mayor or council.

As for the Post Office comment, primary is going to be Post Office Police but we show up and police until they get there and hand anyone or any evidence over to them. They are primary we are secondary. This actually does happen once in a blue moon where some guy starts randomly fighting in the post office, and post office police are an hour away vs us.