<p>Stop. Don’t get all your info on this site. I am a law enforcement officer and have been for 24 yrs. working in a state police dept and federal task force on the southwest border with many different agencies. Some depts like mine have a full time public information officer chosen from applications taken from sworn officers usually having some time on. Federal agents, BP DEA etc do start around GS9 however they are a different pay scale than non-law enforcement, ie gun carrying employees. They get AUO pay, which is a premium for availability of about 20%. Also most DEA guys I worked with were GS11 by the time they were off promotion. If you are assigned overseas there is additional money. The Public information officer at DEA when I was there was a seasoned agent, GS13. He had a masters degree in English and was working on a law degree.</p>