HARRISBURG -- Way back in 1872, a deputy sheriff from Philadelphia traveled all the way to the northwest corner of Pennsylvania to bring back a suspect.

But instead, the suspect killed the sheriff, and the killer was then captured and hanged by a private group of "volunteers" who called themselves the State Police of Crawford and Erie Counties. The vigilantes then carried the bodies of both dead men back to Philadelphia.

"The group was also created to round up horse thieves," apparently a serious problem at the time, Col. Jeffrey Miller, commander of the Pennsylvania State Police, told a state Senate committee yesterday.

The Crawford/Erie group was even officially sanctioned and empowered by a state law in 1872. The law -- now under attack by the state police union -- allows the private group to wear uniforms with insignia reading "state police," to carry weapons, to have a marked police vehicle, to detain suspects and make arrests.

"It's a dangerous situation, a scary situation, and I'm concerned," Miller told the Senate Appropriations Committee. The Pennsylvania State Police, who now number about 4,300, weren't officially formed until 1905, 33 years after the Crawford/Erie group came into being.

Miller said he was afraid members of the public could be confused by the similarity of the names on the uniforms of the volunteer group and the real state police.

Now, a move is afoot in the Legislature to repeal the 1872 law and change the name and undo the powers of the police volunteers. The group is still active in the two-county area, with 230 members.

About three-fourths are men, age 55 or older, said one of their officers, Kevin Ball, 47, who lives in Crawford County and works as a security guard at Conneaut Lake park.

The volunteer group provides security at fairs and carnivals, augments small municipal departments at accident scenes, and even provided some security for then-Gov. Tom Ridge as he went to the Erie airport on Sept. 11, 2001, to fly back to Harrisburg, said Ball.

"We have a good working relationship with the municipal departments around here and with most of the state troopers," Ball contended.

But there are certain obvious identification problems between the volunteer group and the real Pennsylvania state police. One is the similarity in names, said state Police Sgt. Bruce Edwards, president of the State Troopers Association.

"There are no private police in this country any more," Edwards said. "We're lucky there hasn't been a tragedy yet" with the Crawford/Erie group.

Ball, a member of the group for six years, said that to his knowledge, a volunteer has never fired a weapon while conducting security and has never arrested anyone. Several years ago, however, a member of the Crawford/Erie group did detain a suspect in the shooting of a school teacher in Edinboro until regular police arrived. He was later given an award.

Ball said he's aware of the complaints of the state troopers and talks are under way about possible changes in the group's operations, including the insignia on the uniforms, the carrying of firearms and the arrest powers.

But state Rep. Ron Marsico, R-Dauphin, a strong backer of the state police, said he plans to introduce a bill in about three weeks to undo the 1872 law that gave official police powers to the Crawford/Erie group.

"We can't have people going around saying they're state police when they're not state police," Logan said.