Church Can Start Its Own Police Force, Alabama Senate Says
This is plainly dangerous and wrong, Wingnuts decry the morality police and religious goons of Saudi Arabia and the Taliban all day long but here they go creating the same in Alabama.
The officers would be given “all of the duties and invested with all of the powers of law enforcement officers in this state,” the bill says.
A spokesman for the church tells reporter Andrew Yeager of member station WBHM in Birmingham that the church was moved to create its own police force after the 2012 Sandy Hook school shootings.
In Yeager’s report for today’s All Things Considered, he says that the bill’s main sponsor, state Sen. Jabo Waggoner, is helping the church deal with security needs that aren’t met by the private security it’s already using.
“It was their decision,” Waggoner tells Yeager, “and if they wanted to have their own police force, you know, I don’t see any reason why they can’t. It’s not unusual.”
More: Church Can Start Its Own Police Force, Alabama Senate Says : The Two-Way : NPR