Officers as Heroes

It was very sad this week hearing about the RCMP officers who died in service. 
Some TV shows with officers as romantic heroes, such as Bones, show FBI officers.
The last thing I wanted to write was another cop story. However, sometimes a character appears...

I'm trying to write a romance in which a young airport officer (US Customs and Border Patrol) meets a gal from Colorado, and then he trains to be a different kind of officer who works with the county sheriff but on a federal level in an area of mixed jurisdictions in the Rocky Mountains (national park, native reservation, active mining areas, etc). One imagines a US Deputy Marshal like Wyatt Earp or an FBI officer like Booth. It's terribly complicated in real life, however, and the research leaves a lot of questions, some of which affect whether the plot I've imagined could actually work out in terms of law enforcement regulations.

Does anybody know anything about that?

If you are writing about US federal officers or other law enforcement, here is a link to some recent laws about whether or not off-duty officers can carry weapons:

http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/law-enforcement-bulletin/january2011/off_duty_firearms

I came across it while trying to figure out what kind of dress suit an officer would wear off-duty :).

Of course I have been reading Tony Hillerman for background, as well as other western writers. I never imagined that this one character would be so complicated, starting out as just a good-looking, clean-cut kid in an airport job.
The young RCMP dog handler who was killed on duty last week reminded me of this guy I'm trying to write about: young, handsome, nice, with a faithful dog and a beautiful gal.

So what I'm doing is some writing, some research, some adjustments, and then of course when it's all done I'll probably have to make major revisions in the plot to accommodate some realities of officers and law enforcement. Where all else fails I'll fall back on the "it's fiction" excuse, but one still requires a certain amount of verisimilitude (no orange trees ripening in winter in high altitude Colorado, for instance).

Anyone has any other research resources, let me know. Like a book called "Modern US officer research for romance writers". I'm afraid if I start asking any real US federal officers too many questions they'll target me as a terrorist!

After this week I'm taking a couple of weeks off unless I feel moved to contribute the odd comment or two during my holiday. 

Jennifer Getsinger
June 12, 2014