BUTLER TWP — The Butler Veterans Affairs Medical Center is more than just a hospital. It has a hospital, but it also has a bank, a retail store, and leased property.

“Think of it as a small city within 88 acres of land,” said Frank Dalcamo, chief of the medical center’s police department.

As long as there has been a VA hospital, there has been some sort of security force. Eventually, that security evolved into the police department that operates today.

The medical center’s police department has 11 members, including Dalcamo. Its motto is: “We protect those who served.”

The department functions like any other police department. Officers can arrest people for crimes committed on the medical center’s campus, they can issue traffic citations, and they have a mutual aid agreement with Butler Township.

They do not have jurisdiction off the VA property, but they can go to another VA facility in the country and have jurisdiction there.

The police have carried guns since 2003. Dalcamo said the Department of Veterans Affairs started arming VA police in 1996 in response to the number of VA police killed in the line of duty.

The police are involved in nearly everything that happens at the medical center. They are told of all events that will be taking place, and they know who is going to be on the property.

The VA police have to go through a good bit of training. They must have previous law enforcement experience to even be considered for the job.

They then receive 80 hours of training at a facility, five weeks of training at the VA Law Enforcement center in Little Rock, Ark., a minimum of 60 hours of in-service training every year, and must go to a firing range at least four times a year. They also are updated constantly about federal information, most of which could not be discussed, Dalcamo said.

Since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, they have had an alert chart and know what to do for the different alerts. They also let the staff at the hospital know when the alert has changed.

The police department has expanded, and the number of police officers has doubled.

There are few actual criminal incidents at the medical center. Dalcamo noted that having people see police officers is a deterrent to crime.