Ravenwood - 10/03/05 07:00 AM
Policemen have a very difficult job, so it's a bit surprising that New Jersey police officers would take such offense to being stopped for speeding in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
A speeding New Jersey police convoy should not have been warned to slow down here, its superiors say, despite numerous 911 calls from motorists claiming they were forced off Interstate 81.Should have is more like it. Other officers ignored the deputy and just drove away. Imagine the response if you or I had done that.An incensed New Jersey sheriff called an Augusta County (VA) deputy a "disgrace" for pulling over officers returning home from a Hurricane Katrina relief mission Sept. 18.
Augusta Sheriff Randy Fisher and the Virginia State Police defend the stop because the New Jersey officers were traveling 95 mph with their lights flashing.
Virginia law requires an emergency before officers can speed and activate their lightbars. Instead of a warning, the speeding officers could have gotten citations.
"Five or six of them did not stop, they just continued northbound," the Augusta sheriff added. "I think they were in a hurry to get home."If police in New Jersey are threatening to retaliate against police officers, I'd hate to be just an ordinary Virginian traveling up there. Hell, I'd hate to be up there even if the Passaic police weren't jerks.Roane ordered the officers whom Fisher described as belligerent -- in the remaining six cars to cut off their lightbars and slow down. A Virginia trooper telephoned their New Jersey departments requesting that the homeward-bound officers slow down...
The news of the Augusta County stop incensed Passaic County Sheriff Jerry Speziale, who, in a taped telephone conversation with Roane, lambasted the deputy for stopping his officers.
"If you think that that's not a disgrace, you should take that badge off your shirt and throw it in the garbage," Speziale said. "This is unacceptable, and I'll tell you what, I hope I get the opportunity to show you the same courtesy up here in New Jersey."
Speziale told Roane that "law enforcement is all about supporting each other" and said he was reporting the Augusta County stop to the National Sheriffs' Association.
Speziale ended the call after cutting short Roane's attempt to detail the incident. "I don't talk to deputies," the New Jersey sheriff said.
(Via Geek with a .45)
That's funny. I thought law enforcement was all about enforcing law.
I guess Passaic County Sheriff Jerry Speziale has never read Sir Robert Peel's Nine Principles, especially not #7:
Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
No, to Sheriff Speziale, police are a priviledged class, above us mere proles.
No wonder the Geek moved out of New Jersey.
Posted by: Kevin Baker at October 3, 2005 11:34 AM"We support our own" has been an expectation among law enforcement my whole life. I have known drunk drivers released to drive again because they are police on their jobs, or related to police. One officer who refused to release the driver and issued a ticket was released from his job for this offense.
I am not surprised that the NJ police expected to be able to do whatever they wanted. What I am surprised by is the Virginia police protecting their constituency. And I am thrilled. If the police are above the law, what is the point of the law?
Posted by: Suzi at October 3, 2005 11:37 AM"They were coming back with equipment that needed to get back."
That is their rationale for the 95mph speeds and the lights and sirens. So, I guess they didn't waste any time stopping to eat while on their emergency journey.
This is why New Jersey cops are the joke of the police world. Not brave enough to be New York cops, too corrupt to work anywhere else.
Even if there *were* an emergency, a NJ police officer is *not* a Virginia police officer. Is it even legal for someone who is not Virginia or federal public safety to use emergency lights/sounds in Virginia?
Posted by: anonymous at October 4, 2005 9:13 AMnj cops may not be too smart, but this group sure are hot!
http://newjerseyblog.blogspot.com/2005/10/arrest-me.html
Posted by: justin at October 6, 2005 1:51 PM(c) Ravenwood and Associates, 1990 - 2014
