George Andrews Wrote:
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> Amtrak Police patrol & protect their service
> facilities and stations...such as Portland, OR...they
> still own facilities.

Amtrak does not own any facilities in Portland.

Portland Union Station is owned and operated by the Portland Development Commission, a development agency of the City of Portland. It is the PDC that provides the contract security in and around the station, and in an emergency it would be the Portland Police Bureau who would respond.

Several months ago there was a drug running incident involving the Coast Starlight; while I believe Amtrak Police was nominally involved, the major players were other agencies - Portland Police and in particular the TSA (who had a heavy presence in/around Union Station acting on a tip and thus bringing it down.)

During the recent crime spree involving people on cell phones, it wasn't Amtrak Police that responded code-3 from their office in Seattle to arrest the evil wrong-doer, it was the city of Salem Police who responded to the call and manhandled that terrorist off the train.

Where Amtrak Police would be beneficial is a crime occurring on a train that crosses state lines. Police officers in Oregon/Washington have only a very limited jurisdiction in the other state, and only for a certain distance from the state line (I want to say eight miles.) Beyond that, it would require cooperation from other local agencies which can be tedious in a major investigation. Amtrak Police as a federal law enforcement agency would have full jurisdiction in both states (as would BNSF Police and UP Police as well; however there is also the problem that Amtrak runs on UP rails south of Portland, and BNSF rails north of Portland. While railroad police agencies do work incredibly well together even when their parent railroads are competitors, a UP police officer simply doesn't have jurisdiction to act on his own off of UP property. And Amtrak cars/equipment aren't UP property so unless it also occurred strictly on UP rails, using the railroad's police force is no better than asking a local city police agency.)

That said...is there enough crime on the Amtrak LD system to warrant having a police agency? After all, my local transit agency (TriMet) doesn't even have its own police department (it funds a "Transit Police" division that is made up by officers from other jurisdictions, specifically the cities of Portland, Gresham, Milwaukie and Beaverton, and Washington County, and the officers wear the uniforms of their home police departments; the police cars are owned by the City of Portland and are painted in a scheme very similar to Portland Police, except replacing the word "Portland" with "Transit".)