Chester sheriff to send deputies to Friday night football

After weeks of wrangling with city and school officials over jurisdiction, the Chester County Sheriff’s Office will allow off-duty deputies to work security at Lewisville High School’s home football game in Richburg Friday night.

Whether uniformed police would work the game has been the source of an unresolved dispute since summer, when school officials hired private security guards for the 2015-16 school year – replacing sheriff’s deputies who had been working as school resource officers for years.

Chester County school officials asked the sheriff’s office Thursday to sign a temporary agreement under which deputies would work the game in uniform, said Sheriff Alex Underwood, who signed the agreement and sent it back to school officials.

“They requested that we have deputies at the game, and we agreed,” Underwood said late Thursday. “But we have not been told that (school officials) have signed off on it.”

When the school district dropped deputies as school resource officers, its also lost an agreement with the sheriff’s office to provide off-duty deputies to work security at Lewisville and Chester high school football home games. Both schools’ stadiums fall under the jurisdiction of the sheriff’s office. Great Falls High School, Chester County’s third high school, sits within the town limits of Great Falls, whose police officers work security.

School and city officials asked the Chester County Council to agree to extend the city boundaries for football games so Chester Police Department officers could work security at Chester High in uniform and with law enforcement jurisdiction. County leaders refused.

Schools officials have repeatedly declined to comment on the issue, but city and county officials have said security guards from Defender Services – the private security company hired by the school district – would work games.

This story was originally published September 3, 2015 at 5:53 PM with the headline "Chester sheriff to send deputies to Friday night football."