Brown County Sheriff's Office. (IMAGE: Courtesy of Fox 11 WLUK)
BROWN COUNTY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Green Bay is 281 days away from welcoming hundreds of thousands of people to the community for the 2025 NFL Draft, and with those thousands of people, will also likely be unfamiliar faces in law enforcement for extra support.
“We’re still trying to iron out the amount of resources we’re going to need for it,” says Brown County Sheriff Todd Delain about the NFL Draft.
Delain says the department is still working out how many officers will be needed each day and how much extra support they’ll need to adjust to thousands of visitors.
“It is not likely that we’ll be bringing in law enforcement agencies from outside Wisconsin, but we will likely be bringing in law enforcement officers from different areas of Wisconsin to assist us,” he adds.
But when outside agencies help police in a jurisdiction that isn’t their own, what can and can’t they do?
“The easy answer is I would deputize them to perform the duties as a Brown County Sheriff’s Deputy under my authority for the specific purpose of supporting something like the NFL Draft,” Delain says.
Deputizing outside agencies is a common occurrence in Brown County already, he says.
“Because of Lambeau Field, because of it being in the city of Green Bay but surrounded by Ashwaubenon with county buildings like the Resch Center and the Expo Hall right next to it, so we already have agreements in place, I deputized all full-time law enforcement officers in Brown County so when they’re acting under their official authority, lets say a city of Green Bay officer operating in Ashwaubenon, they can operate under my authority to do that.”
Delain says for bigger events – like the RNC in Milwaukee – interagency agreements are used.
That lays out the capabilities and limitations of outside agencies and defines who they’re working under.
The question about their authority, however, also arises after a police officer from Columbus, Ohio, shot a homeless Milwaukee man while assisting local law enforcement with the Republican National Convention.
“In the case of the RNC, there’s an interagency agreement so those officers working down in Milwaukee would be operating under the authority of the Milwaukee PD so they would have the same exact authority as the Milwaukee police department officer.”
“Oftentimes when you have a group of officers from another jurisdiction, they will often have a local officer that’s embedded with them,” says Delain. “I don’t know the specifics of the case in Milwaukee but it wouldn’t surprise me if in that group of officers there if there was a Milwaukee police officer there or in the area of that. But, in the use of deadly force or situations like that, we’re all governed by rulings that come out of the U.S. Supreme Court so that’s pretty consistent across the entire country so I don’t think there’s that much of a concern with that.”
While some may be concerned about strangers policing or taking action in a community that isn’t their own, Delain isn’t.
Namely because those helping with the draft will also be from our state.
“Well, the advantage we have in Wisconsin is that the training for law enforcement officers in Wisconsin is the exact same in any jurisdiction,” he adds. So, if you’re a certified law enforcement officer in state of Wisconsin, you can perform those duties anywhere. So once you’re certified as a law enforcement officer, nothing really changes, everything we do related to our actions – arrests and use of force – would be consistent across the state of Wisconsin which is really beneficial for us if we are talking about bringing people in for the Draft.”
Sheriff Delain adds that before hitting the streets, those officers will still receive briefings on local policies and expectations.
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