Contention between locals and feds: real or exaggerated?

[tapout]

ive never had a problem with any federal agency. both as a corrections officer and a county police officer ive worked with the US Marshalls, INS, DEA, Secret Service, and specialzed units like ICE. Ive personally always found them to be very helpful and knowledgeable.

keep in mind that although ive worked with these units, its always been on a limited basis. its not like i see them everyday. in fact, its very rare that i get a chance to work directly with them at all. also ive never had the pleasure of working with the FBI so i have no comment there. i know when i cant identify someone i arrested, i fax their prints to the FBI, and they always resopond promptly with a match, so i guess i have no complaints.

[Five-0]

My first taste of law enforcement was an internship with the Secret Service in college. Had a great experience and the SAIC told me to always use his name as a reference. He also knew that I wanted to eventually come back as an agent. His words to me, "Local law enforcement can do thier job without us. We can't do our job without them." Know that I've seen both sides of the curtain I know what he means.

[HardNoseBull]

As a Fed C/O I have never had a problem with Fed Police or municipal police. However I have had issues with Provincial Corrections. There is a little bitternes as we tend to make more, we start full time not casual. It just seems hit or miss, i've had about 60-40 with them 60% bad and 40% good. I don't undertand it, the way i look at it, we are all Peace Officers, whether youa fed leo, a beat cop, a state c/o a fed c/o a customs or border patrol, you carry a badge and fight bad guys. Too many guys forget that. Ultimately we are all on the same team, as corny as that sounds it's true.

[2209]

I just got a class taught by a Customs guy. It was pretty cool.

[Pedro56]

All of the Agencies I have dealt with have been good, minus the FBI. I didn't like the way they did or do stuff.

[Coloradocop]

Hollywood has taught the general public the stereotype that local police don't like feds; that feds try to take all the credit; that feds may not respect locals; etc. In your experience is this realistic or not?

From my perspective it would seem that both need each other to effectively combat a lot of different types of crime.

There is some good natured joking around with the Feds when I've dealt with them (US: "Let us real cops show you how to do police work"... FEDS: "yeah, well, we're just here to manage you anyway, that's why we have the suits", etc). I've never had any bad encounters with the Fed folks... Only ones I deal with on a regular basis are the ATF guys (primarily when we get a bad-guy with a gun and want to go with Federal charges). Our ATF guys have been very helpful and professional, and I like working with them.

hmm... Hollywood got some stuff wrong, go figure.

[Checkman]

I was a detective for a few years with my agency. I mostly worked fraud cases and I found the local Secret Service agents to be very helpful and easy to work with. Back in the summer of 2004 I worked a burlgary in which 28 handguns were stolen from a local gunstore. The ATF agents were also a tremendous help. Thanks in part to their assistance I was able to charge three of the four suspects and we recovered fourteen of the stolen guns.

On the other hand I haven't been impressed with the FBI. They never show up to help, they never have any interest in taking cases in which Federal laws have been broken and they just aren't very helpful. They also tend to be real patronizing. I haven' had any experience working with the Marshals or DEA.

[PersiusOne]

I've had good relations with Feds - although, I would be annoyed if I were in the situations some posters have been in!

[Watchman]

The only work I've ever done with Feds was in drug eradication wth the DEA and the ATF. Everyone was fairly proffessional in the dealings.

Some of those field agents in the ATF guys were awful cocky though. I beleive some of them actually thought they were bulletproof.