Several police agencies in Kentucky are uniting in an effort to strengthen law enforcement service.
Bluegrass and Central Kentucky Unified Police Protection System or ‘BACKUPPS’ is an effort that allows officers from participating agencies to share jurisdictional boundaries. Murray State Police became the third Kentucky university to join the partnership when Calloway County Judge Executive Larry Elkins approved the measure this week. MSU Police Chief Jamie Herring says BACKUPPS could help in community-wide occurrences.
“It would be understandable that the Murray Police Department and the Calloway County Sherriff’s Department and even the Kentucky State Police would be overwhelmed as well so we could not depend on them to provide assistance to the university. So that would be a circumstance where we would reach out to our sister institutions for assistance,” says Herring.
BACKUPPS was founded in 2014 by Georgetown Police Chief Michael Bosse with 26 agencies primarily in the central bluegrass to better fight criminals on the move. The program has now reached 52 agencies across the state.
