For the purposes of emergency management, as the term is defined in section 2 of this title, the commissioner of public safety may recruit and train for police duty citizens, including sheriffs, deputy sheriffs, constables and police officers, from whom he may augment the state police, in emergency functions, by employing such number of them, for such period and at such compensation as the governor may fix, as auxiliary state police, who shall take the oath prescribed for sheriffs and, while so employed, shall each wear a distinctive arm badge marked with the words "AUXILIARY STATE POLICE" and shall have the powers and immunities of the state police as defined in section 1914 of this title. (1959, No. 23, § 8, eff. March 6, 1959; amended 1989, No. 252 (Adj. Sess.), § 21.)