VIENNA — About 25 people gathered in the Maries County courtroom on May 18 for an informational meeting about the Maries County Sheriff’s Office’s new posse.

On April 27, Sheriff Chris Heitman made a Facebook post to announce the formation of the posse. He cited the Posse Comitatus Act, which President Rutherford Hayes signed into law in 1878. The act limits the powers of the federal government to enforce domestic policy within the United States by use of the federal military. Only the National Guard and the Coast Guard may act on domestic law enforcement duties. The name references the legal concept of the posse comitatus, which allows local law enforcement entities to enlist the support of civilians in keeping the peace.

The Facebook post announced the meeting and provided information on the requirements and how to apply. By the time of the meeting, the sheriff’s office had pre-approved several applications after conducting background checks.

Minimum requirements for joining the posse included being 18 years old and a U.S. resident, a valid driver’s license, good health, no felony convictions, no misdemeanor convictions in the last year and personal conduct suitable for association with law enforcement. Maries County residency is not a requirement to join the posse. One of the attendees of the meeting was from Jefferson City.

The posse will wear a uniform that includes a shirt with the posse badge, blue jeans and either a cowboy hat or a hat with the posse badge.

Heitman began the meeting by introducing Chief Deputy Scott John and the idea of the posse.

“He came up with this idea,” Heitman said. “I really appreciate it. It’s a great way to help get the community involved and let you guys help out.”

John said he got the idea from other sheriff’s offices in the state that have posses. Some of them specialize in one area of volunteer work. Others contribute a range of services. Many posses operate on horseback, but John said he has several ideas for the Maries County posse that would benefit both the sheriff’s office and the community.

“It’s kind of catchy,” John said as a reason for calling the group a posse, in addition to referencing the Posse Comitatus Act. “It goes back to the traditional sheriff days, and I love the tradition of the sheriff.”

Although John has many ideas for the posse, he said that the sheriff’s office is still working out the details.

“Nothing is set in stone; what we’re going to do, how we’re going to do it, who’s going to be involved, who’s going to be in charge, what the training is going to be,” he said. “We want to develop that with you: the posse members and the volunteers.”

One thing is certain: there will be a set of guidelines for posse members to follow. John said the Facebook post announcing the posse had raised concerns outside of the community.

“I’ve had some phone calls from radio stations in Columbia, and other media sources that were concerned about us turning people loose in the community with guns to go be deputies basically without training, and that’s not what we’re doing,” he said.

John mentioned a TikTok he had seen criticizing the posse announcement that he said “took some leaps” with assumptions about what the posse will do. In the video posted May 10, former Missouri 1st District House of Representatives candidate Jess Piper said she saw “red flags” because the Facebook post announcing the posse mentioned crime scene searching, volunteers working with youth and accepting volunteers with misdemeanor convictions. She also had concerns that volunteers working with law enforcement could result in incidents like the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin, who died after an encounter with a neighborhood watch coordinator in Florida.

“Everything will be supervised,” John said. “Everybody will be trained. There will be restrictions and limits.”

John said the sheriff’s office will review any misdemeanors by applicants on a case-by-case basis.

“We’re not going to excuse some misdemeanors, like an assault or a domestic violence situation that was just below a felony,” he said. “We expect higher standards of our law enforcement folks. We need to expect higher standards of our posse as well.”

John said there could be other disqualifying details for applicants. He also listed things posse members will not do. They will not respond to emergencies without being called out by the sheriff’s office.

“You’re not going to get red and blue lights on your car and go racing across the county to respond to a shots fired call, or a domestic (call) that’s in progress or a traffic stop that you think you need to go back a deputy up,” he said.

Posse members will not identify themselves as peace officers. John reminded everyone that if a posse member tries to act in a law enforcement capacity or imitate being a deputy, that is a crime. The sheriff’s office will arrest them.

They will also refrain from revealing confidential information to the public. John said posse members would not have access to all the information within the sheriff’s office, but he wants them to understand not to share confidential information if they overhear it.

Posse members will not misuse equipment or information obtained in their duties. Some will have access to equipment that allows them to run criminal checks or license plate checks.

“Somebody’s going to ask you, ‘Hey, would you run this plate for me and see who was out at Grandpa’s farm,’ and that is a no-no,” John said. “You will not do that.”

He added that posse members will receive training on what they can and cannot do.

John said the exact duties of the posse are a “work in progress.” He plans to tailor the roles to match what volunteers want to do. The posse’s requirement for “good health” refers to the position in the posse for which people volunteer.

“We’re going to have different areas for the posse,” he said. “You may not be able to go out and do a foot patrol search and rescue down at Clifty Creek, but you may be able to do a lot of the other things we’re going to do. We don’t want to put you at risk or make you another victim on scene somewhere. As long as you’re in good enough health to do the area you’re volunteering in, we’re all for that.”

Ideas he proposed include search and rescue, school safety, weather spotting, disaster relief, fairground security patrols, home patrols for people away on vacation, emergency response training, firearms training, crime scene search assistance, public relations and inmate supervision.

“Those are all areas that we could use help with that, with proper training, a posse, or posse members, could help do,” John said.

Training opportunities for posse members could include search and rescue training, radio operations and etiquettes, firearms handling, CPR and first aid, self-defense and use-of-force continuum, less-lethal weapons, emergency management response, weather spotting and legal knowledge. The sheriff’s office plans to align training and access to equipment with the position for which posse members volunteer. For example, someone assisting in dispatch would have access to the equipment there.

John said posse members have a constitutional right to carry firearms, but if they plan to carry while representing the sheriff’s office, they need proper training and the ability to pass the same qualifications as deputies.

The formation of the posse gives the sheriff’s office a chance to expand search and rescue procedures. The office does not have a boat for water patrol or rescue, so having a posse member with access to a boat and proper water rescue training could be a major asset to those efforts in the county.

“We usually have to find a volunteer that has a boat that’s already down there that will let us hop in and take us somewhere,” John said. “Two years ago, we found the remains of a body on the river bank down by Nagogami. We had to call Osage County in with their boat, and we requested the assistance of a citizen who had a boat in the water at the time, and they were glad to help. But again, if there’s someone that has an interest in that, then we could have some posse members that could help.”

He added that they could also do organized river cleanups.

John said he has talked with local fire departments about developing a swift water rescue team. They have gotten some equipment from the federal 1033 Program, which the U.S. Department of Defense oversees. The program gives excess weaponry and equipment from the military to civilian law enforcement agencies. The equipment they have received includes a large military truck that can go on low-water bridges with swiftly moving water.

“It seems like every year we have one or two low-water bridge rescues that we have to do where people are trapped in a car when the river is way up and out of control,” he said. “We’ve been able to rescue one of them, I think, by just driving a fire truck out there because it’s heavy enough and full of water, but some of them, the water has been up too much and too swift that we can’t risk putting a fire truck out there. We’ve had to wait for the highway patrol to get there with a water rescue team, and those people have sat out there for two to three hours waiting for rescuers to get here to get to them. If we’re in a situation where that flood water is rising, we could lose somebody like that.”

John said some of the things preventing the swift water rescue team right now are the high costs of equipment and training and a lack of youth in the sheriff’s office. Scuba search and rescue training could be available to posse members because Heitman is a scuba diving instructor.

Another area of interest that might attract posse members is drones. John said people interested could learn to fly them and get licensed with the Federal Communications Commission to use drones to assist with search and rescue. The sheriff’s office has five drones. Two are small and designed for flying indoors. The other three are larger and have nicer cameras. One is equipped with night vision capabilities.

Crime scene assistance by posse members would also require training and supervision.

“The one thing you learn as an investigator is no one goes into the crime scene,” John said. “If you have it taped off, and you have it controlled off, and your detectives are in their working, the posse members won’t be in there.”

Duties for posse members at crime scenes could include setting up the perimeter to make sure no unauthorized people enter a crime scene and conducting grid searches of the surrounding area for evidence. John used the example of a robbery from a few years ago when pieces of evidence were scattered outside the business. Workers from the Missouri Department of Transportation found evidence discarded in a ditch while they were working nearby. If a posse member found evidence, they would mark it with a cone and stand watch until an investigator could photograph and collect it.

John said controlling the crime scene is vital to an investigation, and adding the help of a posse would aid those efforts. Right now, the sheriff’s office employs seven full-time deputies.

Another way John proposed for the posse to help the community is by aiding with school safety. The Maries R-2 School District has a school resource officer, but the Maries R-1 School District does not.

“With a posse, we can put representatives of the sheriff’s department in all the schools,” he said. “Not every day, but periodically. Just being there every now and then is a deterrent. You can be there at drop-off times or pick-up times. You can do a school walkthrough.”

Heitman teaches a junior deputy program to fifth-graders and sixth-graders at both school districts. It covers safety at home, safety at school, firearm safety, bullying, drug and alcohol abuse and functions of the sheriff’s office. Right now, the sheriff’s office runs the program every other year, but John said if posse members help with instruction, it could expand the program to every year. He would also like to expand the program to include high school students and expand on lessons from the younger students’ course. The high school program could cover topics such as drug and alcohol abuse, self-defense, vehicle safety and preparation for life after high school.

John discussed how crisis intervention teams nationwide had seen a rise in mental health crises in the 13 to 15 age group.

“We need positive role models in our schools,” he said. “A mentor, a friend, someone to talk to is really needed. Having people that are working with our (school resource officers) in the schools, and being there more than five days out of the year, being repetitive at the scene once a week, twice a month, three times a month, I believe will help our kids.”

John also suggested posse members could be visible at school events such as concerts or games to act as deterrents to harmful activity.

“Going and supporting the kids at youth sporting events, I think it’s going to be a great idea and a great way to help mentor our youth,” he said.

The posse’s interaction with youth in the community could go beyond the schools. John said that sometime in the next year or so, once the posse is running, the sheriff’s office could consider starting a junior posse for kids.

“Anything we can do to make our future in our area brighter, I want to try to do,” he said.

Posse members would also have the opportunity to help the sheriff’s office with recovery from disaster events. A conference room in the sheriff’s office has the equipment needed to set up an emergency operation center.

“We will need, again, manpower to help with that and manpower out on the streets,” he said.

John, who is also Maries County’s emergency management director, recalled some of the damage from the April 15 tornadoes that caused damage in the county, including the destruction of 11 homes.

“You’ve already had your life torn upside down,” John said about people who lost their homes in the storms. “It’d be nice to know that there are community members that are trained and work with the sheriff’s office, so they feel like they’re trusted, that can keep an eye on their stuff overnight and help set a security perimeter up around that disaster area.”

Posse members could also help the community with weather awareness. John said in the past, the National Weather Service (NWS) has taught classes to residents to help them differentiate wall clouds and funnel clouds from average storm clouds. False reports online by misinformed people can lead to confusion at the NWS.

“Having trained spotters that know what they’re looking at helps the (NWS) greatly to get our warnings out,” John said.

The sheriff’s office would like to do more inmate cleanups, but John said that requires more employees for supervision. He clarified that work done by inmates, such as the annual post-fair fairground cleanup, is voluntary.

“When they’re outside of the jail, they must have a jailer or a trained set of eyes on them,” he said.

John said some volunteers had told him they would like to keep with the tradition of a sheriff’s posse and ride on horseback. He suggested spring and fall trail cleanups for both horse riders and those who prefer machine mounts such as all-terrain vehicles.

In the future, John would like to start a fundraiser event. It would include a barbecue during the day where first responders in the county could gather, meet with the public and demonstrate some of their vehicles and equipment.

“It’s a way to interact with the public,” he said. “Let people see what we’ve got, what we do (and) ask questions about where their tax dollars are going.”

At night, the event would turn into a rodeo. John said he has done some of the pre-planning.

A board overseeing the posse would take applications from charitable community organizations to fund projects with the money raised at the fundraiser.

“We put a lot of pressure on our business owners to support those (organizations),” he said. “If we can have a fun event, it would take some of the pressure off them.”

John took questions from the attendees. One asked if the posse would include a chaplaincy program.

“We’d love to,” John, who first volunteered at the sheriff’s office as a chaplain, said.

Another person asked about the time commitment.

“We want to make sure that you can volunteer for what you want to,” John said. “You don’t have to do all this. You can do one thing.”

He also said the sheriff’s office would work around posse members’ schedules to ensure that they receive proper training. Some training is online, such as 911 dispatch training.

“In the essence of the posse comitatus, we will hopefully never need the posse in Maries County in its official capacity,” John said. “However, our citizens could sleep even more peacefully knowing there is going to be a trained group standing ready to aid the sheriff in defending their life, liberty and constitutional rights if ever needed.”

John said he appreciated that everyone attended the meeting.

“In this time, it’s hard to get volunteers for anything,” he said. “To have this many people in a room willing to volunteer in their community and with the sheriff’s office is excellent, and it shows the character of our community.

“In my hopes, this will improve relations between the sheriff’s office and the community and help you understand a little better what we do,” John said later.

“I was both proud and impressed with the turnout for the posse informational meeting,” Heitman wrote in a Facebook post the following day. “This is just the beginning though. I look forward to reporting the organizational progress, upcoming training opportunities and future meetings of the posse.”

According to the post, there had been more than 20 applications turned in following the meeting. People interested in joining the posse may receive an application by emailing sjohn@mariescountymo.gov or sfannon@mariescountymo.gov or by stopping by the sheriff’s office.