system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: The difference between employees (or officers maybe, I'm not sure what to call them) of a sheriff's office and police station.

I know... I'm an idiot, but after watching another movie that had both (fighting with each other of course), I realized I didn't fully understand the difference.
gpt
A sheriff is in charge of law enforcement for a county (or parish), and has deputies to assist him.  They have jurisdiction over the entire county.  A sheriff is most typically directly elected to the position, and then 'deputizes' people to use his authority.

A police department, and its officers are typically created by a municipality and have jurisdiction over just that municipality.

Then there are typically state law enforcement agencies like state troopers or highway patrol.  They are statewide, but their jurisdiction is typically what makes them different.  Highway patrols typically only have jurisdiction over the state roadways, which state troopers have jurisdiction over the entire state.

Depending on the location, there can be a lot of overlap and thus rivalry between municipal police and sheriff's deputies, which is what the movies play upon.  When the movies portray one or the other as corrupt, they both have jurisdiction within the police department's municipality, so the 'good' agency and the 'corrupt' agency are both exercising their authority.