Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office and Unified Police Department split after 14 years

SALT LAKE CITY — A big change was ushered in Monday in Salt Lake County law enforcement. After 14 years, the Unified Police Department and Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office officially became separate departments. The agencies said the biggest change for the public will be in Salt Lake's canyons and unincorporated areas. Those will now be patrolled by the sheriff's office instead of UPD. Major services like the Metro Gang Unit, DEA Task Force, warrants and extraditions, and search and rescue departments will return under the sheriff's office. There are several cities under UPD that opted to continue to band together for police services. Those include Kearns, Magna, Midvale, Millcreek, Holladay, Copperton, Emigration Canyon, White City and Brighton. They elected to reinstate their interlocal agreement and operate under a governing board. "Going forward we hope we can continue a partnership with UPD," said Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera. On Monday, the sheriff's office swore in over 70 new officers, and dozens of other civilian officers — expanding its force to around 1,100 employees.The change came after the Utah Legislature passed HB374 in 2023 requiring counties the size of Salt Lake to make the switch. As that bill was being debated, Rivera was reluctant to support it and cited political pressure, but ultimately did. "I'm no longer reluctantly making this switch because the state legislature mandated that we do this. We want to make sure that we're doing what we need to do," Rivera said. "I'm very proud of what we have done in a year." The bill's sponsor, Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan, argued that a sheriff overseeing both its own office and UPD was a conflict because cities that weren't a part of UPD weren't getting the independence of the sheriff. He also argued that Salt Lake County cities that didn't use UPD were being double taxed. But others argued that having a bigger police agency saves everyone money on services; especially the smaller townships. "This split is very, very expensive to our communities," Rivera said. "When you're sharing resources, your costs are much cheaper. And now that we're now no longer sharing resources, our costs do go up. We know that we didn't choose this to happen, but we're making the best of it." UPD spokesperson Sgt. Aymee Race congratulated the sheriff's office on gaining some law enforcement services back and on its hiring of new officers and also said that serving their communities is now their focus. "Even if someone calls and they don't understand like how this boundary has changed, our dispatchers can direct you to the right officer," Race said. "So still, you know, the public just don't be afraid to call in non-emergency or emergency."

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