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LOCATION:
The Gogebic County Sheriff Department is located in the Western end of
Michigans Upper Penninsula often referred to by locals as the U.P. (People who
are residents of the U.P. are sometimes referred to as "YOOPERS" -
Not to be confused with "The Yoopers" who are a very popular and
comical group of folk singers from Upper Michigan)
For those who may wonder - Our County is pronounced GO GIBB ICK. It is
amazing how many people have fun trying to pronounce this.
Gogebic County consists of 1100 square miles with our jurisdiction starting
at the MI / WI border at the City of Ironwood and extending East down to and
including Watersmeet Township. SEE:
Gogebic County Maps
Most of
Gogebic County consists of wilderness areas including many lakes, waterfalls
& rivers. A very popular tourist area both summer and winter.
LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT:
In addition to our Department, the County has 4 other Law Enforcement Agencies
within it. These agencies are the Ironwood Public Safety Dept., the Michigan
State Police Post 87 located in Wakefield, the Marenisco Twp Police Dept and
the Lac Vieux Desert Tribal PD in Watersmeet. Our area also has Law Enforcement
Officers with the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the U.S. Forest
Service whose duties are primarily within the realm of enforcing both State and
Federal Conservation Laws.
STAFFING:
The Gogebic County Sheriff Dept consists of the Sheriff, Undersheriff,
Lieutenant, Road Patrol, and the Desk / Corrections Officers. The current staff
is now 21 full time officers, a part time Marine Patrol and Snowmobile Patrol
Officer, several part time female jailers, and 3 cooks who handle meals for
inmates within the jail.
(Check out our bulletins page to find out who the
latest additions to the Dept. are.)
BASIC DUTIES:
In addition to the operation of the jail which holds all prisoners arrested
within the county, the Dept. also provides basic police services to the various
townships within the county and provides police services to the Cities of
Wakefield & Bessemer on a contractual basis.
The Sheriff Department & Jail is located in the City of Bessemer MI
which is the county seat. There the day to day operations of the Dept.
including dispatching and operations of the jail are carried out.
HISTORICAL NOTE:
As a bit of historical trivia, it might be interesting to note that at one time
the Sheriff and his family had actually lived within the Sheriff Department
building itself - this could sometimes result in sleepless nights when a
screaming drunk pounding on a cell door would make for a noisy evening. In
recent years the old Sheriff's quarters have been converted to office space, a
photo lab & crime scene tech work area, and our evidence room.
One of the old bedrooms of the old quarters was also converted into a juvenile
holding room where runaways, juveniles charged with a crime, etc. can be held
on a temporary basis when authorized by the Probate Judge or County Juvenile
Officer. It should be noted that in Michigan, a person is considered as an
adult for criminal justice purposes at the age of 17.
In addition to dispatching of Department Officers, the office also dispatches
for the majority of fire departments in the county, acts as a dispatch point
for the Marenisco Twp and Lac Vieux Desert Tribal PDs. Besides Police and Fire
dispatching, the Dept. also acts as an after hours paging site for both the
State of Michigan Family Independent Agency Child Protective Services, and the
Community Mental Health Crisis Line.
The jail operations are handled by the Sheriff Departments Desk /
Corrections Officers who work dual roles in dispatching as well as handling the
inmates in the jail. Most of our Desk Officers are currently trained State
Certified as Jail Corrections Officers much as our Road Officers have to be
State Certified to have full arrest powers as Police Road Patrol Officers.
The jail is classified by the state to handle a total of 24 inmates in general
population. This does not include the overnighters such as OUIL's ( Drunk
Drivers ) that may spend the night in the Detox cell until they sober up and
post their bond.
Although small by big city standards, the jail has to handle all types of
inmates. By MI law, inmates can be sentenced for up to one year in the County
jail. Also inmates may be held for an extended time while awaiting trial on
various charges which range from OUIL arrests all the way to 1st Degree Murder
charges. The Gogebic County Jail also houses inmates from time to time for the
Lac View Desert Tribal PD and for the Michigan Dept of Corrections.
In addition to the day to day needs of the inmates such as delivering meals,
etc. officers must also be trained to deal with all forms of inmate care
regarding medical needs such as issue of prescription medications, proper
handling of suicide risks, etc.
ROAD PATROL OPERATIONS:
The Road Patrol Officers are those who are MLEOTC / COLES certified and have
full powers of arrest in the State of Michigan. These are the officers who
usually work the road, although some certified road officers now work within
the jail. The Road Officers work a somewhat steady shift of 8 hours which is
subject to change every 3 months through a bidding process by seniority, where
as the Desk Officers now work 12 hour swing shifts that change every few days.
The Road Patrol Officers have primary duties of investigating complaints
regarding anything from Murder, B&E, Assaults, Traffic Violations, Domestic
Violence, Accidents, etc. With a Department this size, we don't have Detectives
as such, so the Road Officer assigned to a criminal complaint often conducts
the entire investigation from start to finish. When major cases such as a
Murder occurs we can also call on the resources of the MI State Police
Detectives and Crime Lab to assist us. In addition to day to day police work,
the Road Patrol Officers also have more mundane jobs at times with serving of
civil papers, doing vehicle inspections, transporting jail inmates for Doctors
Appointments, etc.
In addition to normal police duties, we also have officers that specialize in
certain fields. Our Department has one officer that works as a full time School
Liason Officer in area schools. One officer that works DARE on a part time
basis in addition to his regular duties and we have 2 officers trained as Crime
Scene Technicians.
ANIMAL CONTROL PROGRAM:
In addition to the duties mentioned above, the Dept also operates the counties
part time Animal Control Program. Until recently this position was held by all
of the desk officers who rotated into A.C. Duties once every seven weeks for 4
days. But as of April 1st 1999 we have now gone back to only one officer
assigned to these duties. Animal Control is now usually 5 days a week which
also includes some shifts during weekends which we feel will provide better
coverage and service to the residents of Gogebic County. A.C. duties consist of
patroling for stray dogs, responding to complaints on dog & sometime cat
problems, impounding these animals at the local animal shelter, investigating
Cruelty to Animal complaints, etc. In a rural area such as Gogebic County these
complaints can be as simple as chasing down a stray dog to more unusual
complaints such as chasing loose horses or cows off public roadways.
UNIFORMS / EQUIPMENT:
All Sheriff Department Personnel usually wear the same uniform consisting
of pink tan uniform pants and chocolate brown shirts. For certain duties such
as Animal Control, SAR, etc. brown fatigues are also worn. Officers duty belts
are black in color and either leather or nylon and carry handcuffs, keys and
sidearms of various calibers (Officers purchase their own & carry anything
from 357 Magnum revolvers to 45 caliber automatics) Officers also often carry
OC (Pepper) spray and small batons.
Patrol is done either in one of 6 standard sized squad cars, a 4 wheel drive
vehicle for bad weather or wilderness terrain, a 4 wheel drive Animal Control
truck, the Departments one rescue snowmobile, or the Marine Patrol boat. In
addition to standard vehicle equipment such as a mobile radio and first aid
equipment, the officers also carry a portable radio, a 12 gauge shotgun, and a
PBT which is a handheld breath tester for checking suspected drunk drivers.
COMMENTS / ETC.
We hope that this web page has given you some insight into the operations of
our Department and we hope to keep adding more information including additional
photos as time goes on. For current photos go to:
Department Photos Page
While here visiting our Web site, please take some time to visit our
Dept. Links Page
to
find some excellent links to Law Enforcement and other interesting web sites.
We are also adding some officers personal home pages or E-Mail links to this
page.
In addition to our links page, you will also find more links as time goes on in
our HELP INFO site which will have links and or phone numbers to local
agencies, offices, hospitals, crisis lines, etc.
Help Info Site
These sites
and phone numbers will be specific for Gogebic County only.
Another page that our visitors may find of interest is the victims services
page. You will learn a little about this Team that donates their time to help
victims and witnesses in times of crisis.
Victim Services Page
One of the our other pages that we will be adding to from time to time, is our
News Bulletin Page where we will post important area news, missing person
information, etc. If time permits please check it out at:
News Bulletins
SPECIAL NOTE: As of 2001, this web site is no longer considered as the
“Official”
Sheriff Dept. web site as the county now has their own server with a small
segment which is to be devoted to an official web page – this will not
have
nearly the same amount of information as this site. To be fair to our
Department and for the many citizens who have visited this web site over the
years, I will continue to keep this “Unofficial” Dept. web site in
operation
for as long as we keep having people visit it. As to those who may wish to
check out the new county web sites, these can be located at
www.gogebic.org
.
Nuff Said, and thank you for your kind support over this
site. Your Webmaster…
We hope all of our visitors find something of interest in our WEB Pages and
hope you come back to visit as we are always making changes and additions.
While here, please sign and view our site Guestbook. Thanks..
Gogebic County Sheriff Dept.
Guestbook
Deputy Bruce Davey
GOSH TAC
(Gogebic Sheriff Terminal Agency
Coordinator / Dept Webmaster)
DEPARTMENT PATCHES NOTICE
: As much as we wish we could reply to all
the requests we have been getting, we are unable to send out Department Patches
anymore. Sorry Folks, but we are a small Department with an even smaller budget
for these items. ( I have also run out of old uniforms to cut used patches off
of. ) Thank you...
Press button or link below.
please contact GCSD Webmaster.
