Yeah, the rules can be confusing to someone who is either new to ham radio or commercial radio. I look at it as if it's is a one way street. It's perfectly fine for hams to use commercial radios on ham frequencies, but it's not fine for the police, fire, and other public servants to use ham radios on commercial frequencies. If you're friend is using a Yaesu FT60 to talk on sheriff frequencies, even the tactical channel that doesn't go through the main dispatch channel, then he is asking for trouble from the federal government. If his supervisor, or anyone at the sheriff's office, gave him permission to use the FT60, then that person needs to learn what FCC rules say about doing such things. The fines start in the thousands of dollars for individuals and rapidly rise to the tens of thousands of dollars when it involves agencies that should know better.
Whether you end up with a commercial radio you can use legally to talk on that tactical channel or a ham radio that you use only to monitor that channel, I suggest you look into becoming a ham. It isn't very difficult to get your license and the hobby itself is a lot of fun. There are so many different things you can do with ham radio, like talking locally with other hams in your area, talking to people in other countries over HF, communicating via CW (morse code), digital modes that require a computer, talking through satellites, etc., etc. The list of fun things you can do goes on and on.
