In the long run, Salt Lake County Sheriff Aaron Kennard would like to see a combined Metropolitan Police Force in the county. While that is an attractive idea and offers efficiencies in both police work and money, it faces stiff political opposition.
But Kennard makes a great deal of sense in advocating more modest goals in the meantime. He plans to propose the merger of investigative units in the Salt Lake Police Department and the sheriff's office.The sheriff acknowledges that he faces opposition even with this less ambitious plan since there historically is a lot of instinctive "turf" protecting among communities and agencies in the Salt Lake Valley.
Kennard's predecessor, long-time Sheriff Pete Hayward, was known for his distrust of shared responsibilities and for keeping county law enforcement an entity unto itself.
However, crime doesn't stop at the borders of the valley's checkerboard jurisdictions. And failure to work together, except on an ad hoc basis, may leave police agencies uninformed in crucial ways. Major information is shared, of course, but often the little tidbits of data can make the difference in solving crimes. Those snippets of information usually are shared as common knowledge only because officers are working together.
Divisions are so deep at the moment that law enforcement agencies in the county don't even share the same radio frequencies - a considerable handicap in dealing with a valleywide problem.
Kennard argues that a combined investigation unit - which would investigate crime scenes - could provide better evidence and help build stronger cases for prosecutors. And it would save money in the process.
Other steps for joint operations are in the works. The city and county are in the process of merging their crime labs to make a single entity with much greater ability to carry out tests on evidence gathered at a crime scene. A single investigation unit seems a logical next step.
The sheriff's office also has rejoined the Metro Narcotics Strike Force after an absence of several years. The office dropped out of the strike force in the mid-1980s during Hayward's tenure. A great deal of confusion resulted during uncoordinated drug investigations.
Merged operations among various city and county government agencies have worked well and more should be tried. Police work offers an especially effective avenue since lawmen function best when they share information, tactics and manpower.
A combined city-county investigation unit seems sensible and doable. It ought to be implemented.