THE FORCE IS NOT WITH YOU

A small Minnesota town is set to embark on a radical civic experiment: replacing cops with a private security force.

Yesterday, wearing uniforms and carrying sidearms, security guards began doing 24-hour patrols every day of the week on the shady streets of Foley, a community of 2,600 surrounded by farmland, northeast of St. Cloud.

The cost-saving move has triggered worry among some that town leaders may have gone too far, taking some life-or-death responsibilities out of the hands of those with the legal authority to enforce the law.

“It’s a social experiment and it’s polarizing,” said Steve Olson, a Foley Town Council member who called the deal “the best we could do with the resources we’ve got.”

“Each side is struggling to accept it, and I believe they will have to, eventually,” he said.

While many cities and towns pay for private guard details to supplement the work of badge-carrying deputies and police, often within discrete institutions like schools and hospitals, Foley is the first town in Minnesota and one of a few nationally to try relying solely on private guards for street patrols.

“I’m not aware of another place where they have gone to the extent of Foley, Minnesota,” said Jeff Flint, executive director of the National Association of Security Companies. His organization is watching the deal to see how it might influence other towns struggling with shrinking law enforcement budgets, he said.

“Most people in this industry are not comfortable with this kind of deal in Foley,” Flint said. “When you’re in a position where you might have to detain someone ... that’s a force of government. And I think most people, including in this industry, think that should be the government’s role.”

Deputies from the Benton County Sheriff’s Office, headquartered in Foley, have patrolled the town since 2003, when the town disbanded its police department. But faced with the expiration of the contract for 17-hour-a-day patrols and shrinking state aid, Foley’s leaders and the sheriff this year began haggling over a new contract.

Talks fell apart, despite intervention by the Minnesota attorney general’s office, over costs and requests for deputies dedicated to Foley. Early this month, the town council voted unanimously to approve a $223,226 contract with Minneapolis-based General Security Services Corp. The company will provide a team of dedicated guards and vehicles and enforce town codes like parking violations.

City administrator Sarah Brunn said the contract will save the town $53,000 a year, as well as provide 24-hour “proactive” protection.

In a town where deputies so far this year have responded to more than 2,000 calls about alarms, drunken drivers and other problems but not one violent crime, the unusual contract puts guards in a quasi-official role that many in the town say they’re still struggling to understand.

Deputies will continue to respond to emergency calls and conduct criminal investigations but no longer will be responsible for basic duties like downtown door checks and traffic stops.

The guards, meanwhile, will not enforce any state laws but will carry permitted firearms — although not on the grounds of Foley’s largest institution, the 1,700-student public school complex. They will have no access to police radios or dispatch services. Nor is there a plan to forward to the guards any 911 calls from Foley residents that deputies will no longer respond to — including ones for routine, nonemergency issues like noise complaints.

The state attorney general has warned Foley officials of the danger of “statutory and constitutional” problems that could arise from guards trying to detain suspects or from other police-type actions. The county attorney’s office said that according to state law, it cannot prosecute a case based on the word of a private guard.

“If a security guard is downtown checking doors and ... sees someone in the pharmacy with a firearm, that individual under the law would have to run out the door,” said county attorney Robert Raupp, a critic of the Foley contract. “A police officer is not going to do that.” The act of a guard entering a private business after hours “could be a trespass at the least,” he said.

Last week, the county council voted to eliminate three deputy positions in view of the hole in the budget caused by Foley’s loss of revenue.

“It’s going to thin us out even further,” said Sheriff Brad Bennett, whose deputies will cover the remainder of the county’s 400-plus square miles. “We don’t have a lot of deputies, but we did always have that Foley officer, and now we won’t.”

Flint said security officers provide the best service when they collaborate closely with local law enforcement and have clearly defined responsibilities. He questioned how the lack of apparent cooperation in Foley might affect emergency response times.

“If a deputy is out there in a rural town, having to balance his time and feeling stretched, and a borderline call comes from Foley, you have to wonder what the response is going to be,” he said.

Several business owners said they are taking a “wait-and-see” attitude, hoping the guards provide the crime deterrent promised by the security company.

In downtown Foley at Grand Champion Meats — slogan: “Meats this good are rare” — owner Kelly Gall recalled that the last serious crime in Foley she’d been involved with was the burglary of her parents’ home about a dozen years ago.

“I don’t think it’s all going to go to hell,” she said. “It’s still going to be Foley.”