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"Officer safety 'high priority'
By Kit Miniclier
Denver Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 13, 2002 - A generation ago, National Park Service Law Enforcement Rangers carried their guns in old bowling bags or briefcases - because they weren't allowed to wear them.
Today, the off-season force of 13 armed rangers at Rocky Mountain National Park wear sidearms all the time and have immediate, in-vehicle access to shotguns and M-16 rifles, said Chief Ranger Joe Evans.
Evans' colleagues along the Mexican border, where a ranger was fatally shot last summer, wear protective body armor and may carry AK-47 assault rifles.
It took 30 years, and the gunning down of several rangers, before the Park Service, Congress and the public realized that parks and other federal lands are great places for criminals as well as family outings.
So within the past few weeks, federal-lands law enforcement officials have launched a series of efforts to better arm and train their law enforcement officers.
"There was institutional and cultural resistance to arming rangers. They were 'the warm and fuzzy guys' in the Smokey Bear hats," explained Donald Murphy, a career law enforcement officer and new deputy director of the National Park Service in Washington.
Murphy began augmenting sweeping changes last week in an effort to make rangers' jobs safer for both them and the visiting public.
Changes within both the Park Service and Department of Interior are designed to better train armed rangers and their supervisors, improve the chain of command, and use the most sophisticated equipment to enhance uniform reporting of law enforcement problems.
Murphy has the full support of his boss, Larry Parkinson, who commands the third-largest federal law enforcement force in the nation after the Justice and Treasury departments.
Parkinson, a career FBI man who took office four months ago as director of law enforcement and security for the Department of Interior, said in a recent telephone interview that he is giving "officer safety a very high priority."
"It is more important to keep your folks safe than to try to stop one more alien smuggler" along the southern border, he said.
Boss Gale Norton, former Colorado attorney general and now interior secretary, strongly supports reforms in the wake of a highly critical report by the inspector general, which she requested, earlier this year.
National Park Service Law Enforcement Ranger Kris Eggle was slain Aug. 9 at the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona while assisting the U.S. Border Patrol track fugitives from Mexico who may have been smuggling illegal immigrants, drugs or other contraband.
He was the third ranger to be killed on duty in the past four years, according to Randall Kendrick, executive director of the U.S. Park Ranger Lodge.
The lodge, composed of current and former rangers, asked the FBI this summer to find out why Park Service rangers and Interior's park police officers have been consistently assaulted more often than agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration, FBI or Border Patrol.
Federal land protectors usually patrol alone, sometimes beyond effective radio contact, knowing the nearest backup officers (federal or local law enforcement) may be 50 to 100 miles away, Murphy noted.
There was a ninefold increase in the number of threats, harassment and violence toward Park Service rangers, from 10 in 2000 to 104 this year, according to a survey by the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
The 4,400 law enforcement rangers who patrol the nation's vast federal lands "should not be going in to potentially dangerous situations without appropriate manpower, as well as firepower," Parkinson added.
The department's new focus on ranger safety is welcomed by Evans, who has been chief ranger at Rocky Mountain National Park for 11 years.
Evans said plans to put rookie officers with veterans on patrol for up to a year will make it safer for everyone and enhance training.
However, he added "it is unfortunate we had to lose a ranger to get this attention."
Because of the increasing dangers and expanded patrol duties - as Border Patrol officers are shifted from the border to anti-terror duties at ports of entry - Parkinson plans to ask for "a large increase in law enforcement rangers. There is a clear need."
However, he noted, National Park Service rangers sought an extra 600 officers four years ago and didn't get any.
Interior's need for additional police is glaring:
The Bureau of Land Management, which is responsible for 270 million acres of land, has only 179 law enforcement rangers, said spokeswoman Celia Boddington.
That averages out to 1,508,379 acres for each of the rangers to patrol and protect.
The National Park Service is responsible for 386 units covering 83.6 million acres of land and hosted 424 million visitors last year.
However, the Park Service has only 1,400 permanent law enforcement rangers and hires an additional 500 armed rangers during peak tourist periods, said Rick Frost of the Rocky Mountain Regional Office.
The Bureau of Reclamation,responsible for maintaining and protecting more than 1,200 dams, hydroelectric power plants, canals and other facilities, had only 13 armed officers on Sept. 11, 2001, without any law enforcement authority.
Soon afterward, Congress gave the bureau enforcement authority, and it now contracts dam and other security out to other Interior Department officers and local law enforcement agencies.
Interior's rangers, virtually all of whom currently report to land managers with no law enforcement training or background, point with envy to the U.S. Forest Service.
The Forest Service, which has about 600 law enforcement officers, is responsible for 191 million acres, including 155 national forests, 20 grasslands and 383,000 miles of roads, said Denver-based Brian Reilly.
Reilly, commander of law enforcement and investigations, oversees the Rocky Mountain region, which includes lands in Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas.
The service, part of the Department of Agriculture, created a "stovepipe reporting system" about seven years ago which bypasses land managers and keeps all law enforcement matters within the Forest Service's law enforcement community.
Supporters say it provides uniform law enforcement in a field where each land manager traditionally has his own priorities and often doesn't understand the needs of law enforcement, or lacks the proper security clearances to learn.
New orders being issued at the end of this year will require the Interior Department's land managers to take a one-week course in law enforcement, to learn the language and needs.
Meanwhile both the Park Service and Bureau of Land Management, who have scores of senior criminal-investigation specialists, are starting to let the specialists follow the Forest Service and restrict their communications to law enforcement channels.
It is critical to expedite safety, efficiency and training immediately, said Interior's Parkinson, who took office only four months ago.
Parkinson impatiently notes that he has dams, pipelines, oil and gas wells, national monuments and millions of miles of public lands to protect.
"I'm not waiting for it all to get sorted out; we have a huge homeland-security mission which is consuming more than half of my time" already, added Parkinson."
"Officer safety 'high priority'
By Kit Miniclier
Denver Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 13, 2002 - A generation ago, National Park Service Law Enforcement Rangers carried their guns in old bowling bags or briefcases - because they weren't allowed to wear them.
Today, the off-season force of 13 armed rangers at Rocky Mountain National Park wear sidearms all the time and have immediate, in-vehicle access to shotguns and M-16 rifles, said Chief Ranger Joe Evans.
Evans' colleagues along the Mexican border, where a ranger was fatally shot last summer, wear protective body armor and may carry AK-47 assault rifles.
It took 30 years, and the gunning down of several rangers, before the Park Service, Congress and the public realized that parks and other federal lands are great places for criminals as well as family outings.
So within the past few weeks, federal-lands law enforcement officials have launched a series of efforts to better arm and train their law enforcement officers.
"There was institutional and cultural resistance to arming rangers. They were 'the warm and fuzzy guys' in the Smokey Bear hats," explained Donald Murphy, a career law enforcement officer and new deputy director of the National Park Service in Washington.
Murphy began augmenting sweeping changes last week in an effort to make rangers' jobs safer for both them and the visiting public.
Changes within both the Park Service and Department of Interior are designed to better train armed rangers and their supervisors, improve the chain of command, and use the most sophisticated equipment to enhance uniform reporting of law enforcement problems.
Murphy has the full support of his boss, Larry Parkinson, who commands the third-largest federal law enforcement force in the nation after the Justice and Treasury departments.
Parkinson, a career FBI man who took office four months ago as director of law enforcement and security for the Department of Interior, said in a recent telephone interview that he is giving "officer safety a very high priority."
"It is more important to keep your folks safe than to try to stop one more alien smuggler" along the southern border, he said.
Boss Gale Norton, former Colorado attorney general and now interior secretary, strongly supports reforms in the wake of a highly critical report by the inspector general, which she requested, earlier this year.
National Park Service Law Enforcement Ranger Kris Eggle was slain Aug. 9 at the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona while assisting the U.S. Border Patrol track fugitives from Mexico who may have been smuggling illegal immigrants, drugs or other contraband.
He was the third ranger to be killed on duty in the past four years, according to Randall Kendrick, executive director of the U.S. Park Ranger Lodge.
The lodge, composed of current and former rangers, asked the FBI this summer to find out why Park Service rangers and Interior's park police officers have been consistently assaulted more often than agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration, FBI or Border Patrol.
Federal land protectors usually patrol alone, sometimes beyond effective radio contact, knowing the nearest backup officers (federal or local law enforcement) may be 50 to 100 miles away, Murphy noted.
There was a ninefold increase in the number of threats, harassment and violence toward Park Service rangers, from 10 in 2000 to 104 this year, according to a survey by the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
The 4,400 law enforcement rangers who patrol the nation's vast federal lands "should not be going in to potentially dangerous situations without appropriate manpower, as well as firepower," Parkinson added.
The department's new focus on ranger safety is welcomed by Evans, who has been chief ranger at Rocky Mountain National Park for 11 years.
Evans said plans to put rookie officers with veterans on patrol for up to a year will make it safer for everyone and enhance training.
However, he added "it is unfortunate we had to lose a ranger to get this attention."
Because of the increasing dangers and expanded patrol duties - as Border Patrol officers are shifted from the border to anti-terror duties at ports of entry - Parkinson plans to ask for "a large increase in law enforcement rangers. There is a clear need."
However, he noted, National Park Service rangers sought an extra 600 officers four years ago and didn't get any.
Interior's need for additional police is glaring:
The Bureau of Land Management, which is responsible for 270 million acres of land, has only 179 law enforcement rangers, said spokeswoman Celia Boddington.
That averages out to 1,508,379 acres for each of the rangers to patrol and protect.
The National Park Service is responsible for 386 units covering 83.6 million acres of land and hosted 424 million visitors last year.
However, the Park Service has only 1,400 permanent law enforcement rangers and hires an additional 500 armed rangers during peak tourist periods, said Rick Frost of the Rocky Mountain Regional Office.
The Bureau of Reclamation,responsible for maintaining and protecting more than 1,200 dams, hydroelectric power plants, canals and other facilities, had only 13 armed officers on Sept. 11, 2001, without any law enforcement authority.
Soon afterward, Congress gave the bureau enforcement authority, and it now contracts dam and other security out to other Interior Department officers and local law enforcement agencies.
Interior's rangers, virtually all of whom currently report to land managers with no law enforcement training or background, point with envy to the U.S. Forest Service.
The Forest Service, which has about 600 law enforcement officers, is responsible for 191 million acres, including 155 national forests, 20 grasslands and 383,000 miles of roads, said Denver-based Brian Reilly.
Reilly, commander of law enforcement and investigations, oversees the Rocky Mountain region, which includes lands in Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas.
The service, part of the Department of Agriculture, created a "stovepipe reporting system" about seven years ago which bypasses land managers and keeps all law enforcement matters within the Forest Service's law enforcement community.
Supporters say it provides uniform law enforcement in a field where each land manager traditionally has his own priorities and often doesn't understand the needs of law enforcement, or lacks the proper security clearances to learn.
New orders being issued at the end of this year will require the Interior Department's land managers to take a one-week course in law enforcement, to learn the language and needs.
Meanwhile both the Park Service and Bureau of Land Management, who have scores of senior criminal-investigation specialists, are starting to let the specialists follow the Forest Service and restrict their communications to law enforcement channels.
It is critical to expedite safety, efficiency and training immediately, said Interior's Parkinson, who took office only four months ago.
Parkinson impatiently notes that he has dams, pipelines, oil and gas wells, national monuments and millions of miles of public lands to protect.
"I'm not waiting for it all to get sorted out; we have a huge homeland-security mission which is consuming more than half of my time" already, added Parkinson."
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