It appears that an anti-pipeline member of the Wayne County, OH sheriff’s department, Capt. Doug Hunter, has convinced his boss, Sheriff Travis Hutchinson, to ride roughshod over the members of the department–telling deputies they can’t, in their off-duty hours, moonlight as security guards for the NEXUS Pipeline. Hunter’s argument to Hutchinson is that a member of the sheriff’s department going out with surveyors, who have been threatened by anti-pipeline wackos, somehow “intimidates” landowners. Even though the sheriff’s deputies are not in uniform, not driving a police car, and are otherwise unrecognizable to landowners as belonging to the sheriff’s department when they tag along to be sure the surveyors don’t get accosted by the peace-loving landowners the sheriff is “sworn to serve.” Sheriff Hutchinson bought Hunter’s argument hook, line and sinker. And so Sheriff Hutchinson has told his deputies what they can and can’t do in their off-duty hours. Hmmm. We wonder how the deputies like being told what they can and can’t do when they’re off the clock? We wonder if they like the sheriff preventing them from earning extra money working for a private company (a common practice with off-duty law officers)? Could the sheriff himself be breaking the law by disallowing his deputies from working for one specific private company, when (we presume) he allows the very same practice for other private companies?…
