Responsibility for the keeping of peace and order in the Borough shall be vested in a Police Department of the Borough.
It shall be the duty of the Police Department to preserve the public peace, prevent and detect crimes, police the streets and highways, and enforce traffic statutes, ordinances and regulations relating thereto. The Police Department and its personnel shall at all times aid in the administration and enforcement within the Borough of the laws of the United States of America, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the ordinances of Allegheny County and of the Borough.
Police officers shall have all the powers, protections and prerogatives now or hereafter conferred upon Borough police officers by ordinance or by law, and upon constables of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. They shall have the power to make lawful searches, seizures and arrests for violation of any statute or ordinance in force in the Borough and to do such other acts as may be required of them by statute or ordinance.
All Police Department personnel shall be, or upon their employment shall become, Borough employees. Except as hereinafter provided in this section, members of the police force, other than the Chief, shall be selected in accordance with the appointment provisions of the police civil service statutes of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania applicable to boroughs in effect at the time of such selection. Police Department employees who are not members of the police force as described in said statutes shall be selected in accordance with the Borough personnel system as set forth in Article IX of this Charter. All police officers shall as a minimum be required to have passed vision, hearing, health, physical fitness, driving, and psychological and/or psychiatric examinations which shall be provided for in the Administrative Code.
The highest ranking officer within the Police Department shall be designated the Chief of Police. The Chief of Police shall be named and appointed by the Mayor, with the confirmation of an absolute majority of the Council, and shall serve at the pleasure of the Mayor. He shall meet all the qualifications for other Borough police officers as set out in § 1104 of this Charter and, in addition, shall have at least three years' creditable service in the field of law enforcement next prior to his appointment. Operation and administration of the Police Department shall be under the general supervision of the Mayor, acting through the Chief of Police. The routine operation of the Police Department, including, but not limited to, the direction of the time during which, the place where and the manner in which the police force shall perform its duties, shall be under the sole supervision of the Chief of Police.
[Added by referendum approved 11-2-2004]
The Borough of Bellevue may agree with the Borough of Ben Avon, Borough of Ben Avon Heights and Borough of Emsworth, or any of said boroughs, for the purpose of providing police or police services for the Borough of Bellevue and said municipality or municipalities.