Beginning on Friday, May 3, officers from the Wilmington Police and New Castle County Police will begin to be sworn into each other’s respective jurisdiction.
The swearing in of officers into directly adjoining jurisdictions will provide the highly dedicated men and women of the New Castle County Police and the Wilmington Police Department another means to combat crime and to work even more effectively together to apprehend those responsible. Each department will continue to have the responsibility to protect their respective jurisdictions and serve their citizens. Officers will not be changing their normally assigned patrol areas.
What will change is that officers from both agencies will now be able to assist and “backup” each other on a more regular basis, conduct investigations more efficiently and perhaps most importantly, apprehend those who commit crimes but attempt to utilize jurisdictional boundaries to avoid apprehension. It is well known that criminals do not care about jurisdictional boundaries and because of this; these boundaries can no longer be a hindrance to officers from either agency during their investigations or efforts to apprehend those committing these crimes. Historically when the County Police or Wilmington Police took initiatives along common boundaries, crime would just be pushed from one jurisdiction to another instead of being stopped. This effect has been seen in communities along major roadways that link our jurisdictions such as New Castle Avenue, Maryland Avenue and DuPont Highway.
This jurisdictional modification serves as another means to eliminate the traditional “invisible fences” officers encountered between the city and the county and allow for increased service to our communities. New Castle County Chief of Police Colonel E.M. Setting states, ”the swearing in of officers between our two police agencies will allow for even greater communication and cooperation among our officers and our governments as we work even closer together to protect our citizens and relentlessly pursue those criminals who victimize any of our communities.”
Media is Invited to Attend