Do the military branches send their police, into towns where the servicemen visit?
Shore Patrol, MPs etc? I thought they DID.
In my time the military person belonged to the US government 24/7.
Maybe the local town has had a lot of DUIs from Marines. Maybe they requested some help with “your people.”
I have no problem with this. I’m sure that the CHP is the lead, pulls over the driver, determines if they are civilian or military.
If the driver is military, the Shore Patrol or MPs step in.
Be very certain that if caught driving drunk, they are violating a lawful direct order from their commanders. Unit, base, etc.
“Do the military branches send their police, into towns where the servicemen visit?
Shore Patrol, MPs etc? I thought they DID.”
Having dodged MPs when I was in beautiful downtown Leesville La. without a pass during basic training, I would say yes.
Two issues usually arise which enforce the Posse Comitatus Act.
1) Jurisdiction of law enforcement.
2) Military Support to Civilian Authority and source funding.
If local law enforcement is supplemented by military personnel, enormous efforts must be made in the judicial side of the house to handle those who are improperly arrested or how to handle evidence obtained without due process. Additionally, even if some local law enforcement officer declares by his personal edict that military law is in place, the long arm of the law (judicial branch) has time on its side to deal with determining the legitimacy of the situation.
Unlike civilian law enforcement, during the Long War, many military personnel are being assigned military police functions without much more than a HS Diploma, physical training, and boot camp for training. They aren’t undergoing training such as a police academy or review of state law or even the traffic codes. They understand immediate obedience to orders and in some situations serve as manpower where presence is beneficial to the civilian authorities.
The second issue regarding MSCA in Military Operations Other Than War, has numerous constraints placed on local commanders regarding timely reporting and gaining appropriate authority from the local chain of command through the State, through the Governor to the Federal Government, then through to the DoD. Throughout that myriad of required reporting and requests for authority, there are numerous branch points where other public service and nongovernmental organizations might be better solutions than the military.
At the end of it all, somebody has to account for the defense expenditures for the operations conducted in support of civilian authority.
Despite Hollywood SciFi and Cold War rhetoric when Army Navy Surplus was more abundant, the US military is hardly equipped to either supplement or replace civilian mechanisms of operations, commerce, utilities, and infrastructure. At best, a major percentage of US military resources at the Division level might be able to sustain a relatively small town of 10,000-50,000 provided the rest of the nation was supporting it.
Generally speaking, the DoD frequently is at odds with local and state utility companies for operating the military utility infrastructure, even with civilian government service and outsourced skilled personnel. The Government basically got out of operating utility companies with deregulation, although they operate many of their own district plants supporting existing operations.
One of the easist ways to spot BS in military public affairs is when a battalion to divisional command makes extravagant claims of going into a war zone and is establishing infrastructure which never previously existed for city populations and country regions.
Those efforts took decades in the US when we had economic dominance and a large industrial base, consuming a major portion of our expendable income on those efforts, with widely decentralized parallel construction efforts in a free market economy.
FWIW, the military MPs frequently are so understaffed that WYSIWYG. They probably were simply observing during a training period prior to deployment or as temp personnel without sufficient funds for more extensive training in a documented training curriculum (ie OJT as observers). Since a lot of deployed Marines have developed driving habits in war zones, to not stop for anything, we’re probably having a larger number of drunk driving/sleepiness, and unsafe driving practices claim many more friendlies upon return stateside than overseas, not counting improvised munitions.