Law Enforcement: Mutual Assistance

Recently, I was perusing some of the local social media platforms when I observed a significant amount of chatter regarding the observation of a city squad out in the county. It was unfortunate, although not surprising, that the initial question of why a city squad would be out in the county took a negative turn with comments ranging in everything from tax payer resources being wasted to the general degradation of our law enforcement profession. So, I thought the topic of “Mutual Aid” statutes here in the State of Wisconsin would be a great topic to try to shed some light on the matter.

Let’s start with the statute itself which is contained within chapter 66.0313 “Law Enforcement; Mutual Assistance.” To summarize the overall language, it states: “Upon the request of any law enforcement agency, the law enforcement personnel of any other law enforcement agency may assist the requesting agency within the latter’s jurisdiction, notwithstanding any other jurisdictional provision. Law enforcement personnel, while acting in response to a request for assistance, shall be deemed employees of the requesting agency.”

Now, of course there are a great deal more details to this statute and its provisions, but for the sake of this article, what is important is that we operate under this authority to assist each other in our times of need. This is, in fact, a significant resource, as it allows our agencies to operate at a given staff level for day-to-day operations, but then to have additional resources at moment’s notice when an emergency arises. All of this done at no cost to the requester, which, to the issue of tax payer resources, is as efficient as you can get.

There may also be times where a given squad is seen operating out of its jurisdiction, and that officer may be conducting follow ups on an investigation as the various persons involved in that investigation may not reside within their given jurisdiction. You may also see squads out of their jurisdiction traveling to and from training. The bottom line is that the presence of squads in any community is a positive thing, and instead of defaulting to a negative pre-conceived notion, your overall mental health and general disposition may be better served in assuming the positive.

If you ever do have any questions about what we in law enforcement do and the many unique aspects of our duty, please feel free to reach out and we can have a wonderful conversation. I guarantee you will come away better informed than relying on social media platforms for the answers.