Uh-Oh: NJSP Under Fire Again

[TurboDan]

NOTE: I'm posting this thread with some trepidation. If this begins to devolve into the police bashing that usually occurs in threads like this, it will be locked immediately and offending posts deleted.

I'm really interested in hearing an honest response from some of our LEO members on how this type of situation would have been handled in your neck of the woods. As discussions here previously have revealed, there is a big problem of "professional courtesy" being taken way too far in New Jersey, to the point of outright lawlessness on the roads on the part of off-duty LEOs. The "blue wall of silence" in these parts is stronger than probably anywhere else in the U.S., and it has had serious implications as far as a general loss of respect (if not hatred) for police on the part of the public.

Anyway, this is a HUGE story splashing the front pages of multiple newspapers across the state today. Have at it.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/04/state_police_look_the_other_wa/1607/comments-2.html

N.J. State Police looks the other way after fellow trooper drinks and drives
By Chris Megerian/Statehouse Bureau
April 25, 2010, 8:30AM

TRENTON -- It had all the makings of a routine motor vehicle stop. Police officer Ronald Gorneau spotted a silver Toyota swerving and pulled it over. The driver, Sheila McKaig, admitted she had drunk "a lot" before getting behind the wheel, according to the incident report.

Then she told Gorneau she was a state trooper, and the stop in Hamilton Township, Atlantic County, was no longer routine. Instead of being charged, McKaig was driven to the township?s police station, where fellow troopers picked her up.


It was not an isolated incident. In fact, it was the third time in three months in early 2008 that an off-duty McKaig was stopped by Hamilton police after drinking, according to a State Police document. Each time no blood-alcohol test was given, no charges were filed and no ticket was written. Today McKaig is still on the road as a state trooper, a position she has held for nine years.

All told, McKaig was stopped 10 times for various offenses over a 14-month period, but she has never received a traffic ticket in New Jersey, according to police records and a spokeswoman for the state judiciary.

The file on McKaig?s motor vehicle stops was part of State Police disciplinary records requested by The Star-Ledger and provided by the Office of Administrative Law. The incident report was obtained from Hamilton Township police under the state?s Open Public Records Act.

Law enforcement experts call it "professional courtesy" when officers give fellow cops a pass they would not give the average driver. At the same time, however, New Jersey has been on a sustained crackdown on drunken driving. In 2008, police arrested 28,705 people for driving under the influence, and 154 people died in accidents involving at least one intoxicated person.

Assemblyman Nelson Albano (D-Cumberland), who has campaigned for tougher laws against driving under the influence, said the McKaig incidents showed disregard for efforts to crack down on drinking and driving.

"Those officers did not do their job," he said of the Hamilton Township police who stopped McKaig. "There should be no favoritism, no special treatment."

State Police officials said McKaig, 41, is a highly respected and decorated trooper who has earned her spot patrolling the Atlantic City Expressway by staying sober the past two years. Although she caught a break from Hamilton police, they said, she used the opportunity to turn her life around.
State Police officials said McKaig would not be available for comment.

Hamilton Township Police Chief Stacy Tappeiner said the officers should not have given McKaig a break.

"The discretion exercised for McKaig was done far too leniently due to the person?s profession," said Tappeiner, who became police chief this year.

Deborah Jacobs, state director for the American Civil Liberties Union, said the police should have taken a tougher stand. "It seems to me that police agencies should want to hold police officers to a higher standard than that of the general public, not a lower standard," she said.

Dennis Kenney, a former Florida policeman who is a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said police use an informal "sliding scale" when determining whether to look the other way. Speeding off-duty cops may get a pass, but drinking and driving is less likely to be overlooked because it?s much more dangerous, he said.

Although cutting breaks violates the principle of equally enforcing the law, it?s still common, Kenney said.

"Policing is not unlike any other profession," he said. "Every other profession has its way of making exceptions for friends and colleagues."

McKaig was never suspended after the stops, which were detailed in the police documents obtained by The Star-Ledger through the Open Public Records Act. But she is facing disciplinary charges of conduct unbecoming an officer related to the allegations of drinking and driving. The charges were signed by State Police Supt. Rick Fuentes in March 2009, almost one year after McKaig?s third alcohol-related stop. They will be reviewed at an administrative hearing before a final punishment is decided.

The disciplinary charges noted that Hamilton Township police pulled McKaig over 10 times from March 17, 2007, through April 30, 2008. "The majority of stops concluded with verbal warnings, however, the last three instances involved the consumption of alcoholic beverages," reads the document.

The document also shows McKaig later admitted to internal State Police investigators that she had been drinking alcohol before being pulled over each of those three times. Driving while drunk is a motor vehicle violation, not a criminal offense, in New Jersey. But the penalties are tough; even a first offense for drunken driving can cost the motorist a hefty fine and a license suspension of up to six months. A third conviction within 10 years of the second conviction can land someone in jail for 180 days in addition to a 10-year license suspension.

McKaig?s lawyer, Katherine Hartman, said she doesn?t believe her client was ever over the legal limit.

However, Hamilton police were concerned enough that they didn?t let McKaig drive home after the second and third stops involving alcohol, documents show.

Poor Communication

On April 11, police stopped McKaig for speeding and reported she was "pretty impaired and not fit to drive." A cop drove her home, leaving her car in a parking lot.

Two weeks later, when McKaig admitted to drinking "a lot" of alcohol, police had her car towed. Under the legislation known as John?s Law, police are allowed to impound a drunken motorist?s car to prevent the motorist from returning to it and continuing to drive while intoxicated.

Each stop was handled by a different officer, and poor communication left the Hamilton department in the dark about how often McKaig had been pulled over, Tappeiner said.

"Once we were aware of the multiple stops, the previous chief had our internal affairs officer notify the State Police immediately," he said. "The previous chief also took steps to correct the situation within the department."

At that point, McKaig?s supervisor sent her to the employee-assistance program to get help, state officials said.

"She?s a good person that had an issue," said State Police spokesman Capt. Gerald Lewis. "She has overcome some obstacles and is still a productive member of the State Police."

McKaig has drawn positive attention since graduating from the State Police Academy in May 2001. She was commended for helping save the life of a 4-year-old girl lying on a road in Deptford Township after a car accident in 2005; she performed CPR without a protective mask. In 2008 she was recognized again for helping disarm a man in Camden who had two handguns.

Lewis said State Police leaders do not want troopers cutting breaks for fellow cops, and he emphasized that the State Police were not responsible for pulling over McKaig.

Since the stops, she has attended meetings for alcoholics, spoken at conferences and visited with female prison inmates to discuss addiction, said Nestor, who talked about McKaig?s case with her permission.

He added that her situation is not unusual. "It happens to a lot of cops," Nestor said. "They get breaks by other cops."

There are no formal rules on how police should enforce the law with fellow officers, said Peter Aseltine, spokesman for the state Attorney General?s Office.

Maki Haberfeld, another professor at John Jay, said detailed rules could help break down the "blue wall of silence where police officers cover for each other no matter what."

"If there?s no strict regulation, it will just continue," Haberfeld said.

[Minpin]

If you don't want us to bash the fucking cops, what can possibly be discussed? They broke all kinds of very good laws, and they don't deserve to get away with it. They aren't some higher power, they are subject to the same laws as everyone else in this country.

[TurboDan]

The point is to avoid getting childish with it. New Jersey is a complete mess, but we can't let that make us think that everyone in LE in the world is corrupt/dishonest/etc.

[James Young]

{Policing is not unlike any other profession," he said. "Every other profession has its way of making exceptions for friends and colleagues.}
   
Those exceptions do not generally involve ignoring the law.  A CPA may give price breaks or technical advice to a colleague not available to the public but won?t help that colleague evade taxes or SEC requirements.  A physician may give a price break or trade services or advance a colleague ahead of others but, again, they break no laws and violate no public trust.

[The Pirate]

I'm ambivalent about cops getting breaks for speeding.  They should receive no special treatment for something like this, though.  It's dangerous, and there is simply no excuse. 

Though I suppose that nobody wants to be the cop that charges/arrests other cops.

[Colonel Cadillac]

That is unbelievable behavior. I assume that happens nearly everywhere in the country, not just NJ.

Oh and much appreciation for the bolded items 

[James Young]

I oppose giving cops tickets for speeding.  But then I oppose giving citizens tickets for speeding.  We should only stop and cite for egregiously dangerous behavior and 80 in a 55 by itself doesn?t meet that test.  I?m more concerned with impairment, incompetence, interference, inattention and suicidal intent. 
   
However, as long as cops let other cops go because they are cops but ticket ordinary citizens for the same behavior, I will continue to condemn their hypocrisy.

[GoCougs]

Disturbing that this was between two disparate LE agencies. In a country of ~310,000,000 however, no organization will ever be perfect.

At the end of the day, we here in the US are the least policed citizenry in the world; even when it comes to traffic. Be that as it may, IMO there we are over-policed in the aspect of  non-dangerous traffic enforcement. IMO, a good portion of the blame lies squarely with police unions.

[TurboDan]

IMO, a good portion of the blame lies squarely with police unions.

Most of it lies with the general public's obsession that speed is evil and results in instant death for anyone who exceeds a number on a sign. In my experience, most police officers like to use speeding as PC to conduct a stop. They don't like issuing citations unless the person was doing something truly dangerous or acts like a jackass during the stop. It's often pressure from the PUBLIC that results in chiefs and captains putting out edicts to the line officers to write more speeding tickets. Believe it.

The police unions only care about wages, benefits and OT rates. They really could not care less about how many tickets guys give out. Now, that said, some agencies are just messed up from the top down - NJSP probably being the poster boy for this stuff. Every week there's a new scandal, and it's usually a result of an ego problem.

[GoCougs]

Most of it lies with the general public's obsession that speed is evil and results in instant death for anyone who exceeds a number on a sign. In my experience, most police officers like to use speeding as PC to conduct a stop. They don't like issuing citations unless the person was doing something truly dangerous or acts like a jackass during the stop. It's often pressure from the PUBLIC that results in chiefs and captains putting out edicts to the line officers to write more speeding tickets. Believe it.

The police unions only care about wages, benefits and OT rates. They really could not care less about how many tickets guys give out. Now, that said, some agencies are just messed up from the top down - NJSP probably being the poster boy for this stuff. Every week there's a new scandal, and it's usually a result of an ego problem.

If that's the general public's obsession, why is it common data/knowledge that the general public speeds? The point being, most people don't hold that opinion because most people speed.

Of course my contention isn't that police unions push for ticket quotas or whatever. It's this: there are virtually infinitely more laws than LEOs can practically enforce on a regular basis. What's the end result? Only certain laws are enforced on a regular basis; usually the more serious ones. The operative calculus being the more LEOs the more laws that get regularly enforced and thus the "seriousness" bar is lowered. In an extreme example, if there was one LEO per person in the US, our society, culture and the whole of the country would come to a halt.

My original point is that police unions are instrumental in escalating the size and scope of LE agencies. I don't blame them per se; that's what they do. (And yes, I realize not all LE agencies are unionized). Most notably, and in similar vain, research CA's prison guard union for the radical, self-serving escalation of public service unions and the profound negative affect it has on the public good. It will shock you.

[MX793]

Unacceptable.  The law must apply equally to all citizens.  Period. 

[S204STi]

Interesting.  There was a story here recently where a 37 year veteran of the FoCo Police was forced into retirement (or else face charges) for DUI.  The problem is that he has a history of this, at one time having to be taken down at gunpoint by sheriff's deputies.  It makes you wonder how much tolerance there is within each department; should there be a one strike you're out policy, or three strikes? 

Also, a friend noticed the other day that he observed a state patrolman who looked like he'd been pulled over by a county sheriff.   At least the police around here are doing their jobs, but it's interesting that they even offered this guy the choice of retiring or prosecution; why not both?

[TurboDan]

If that's the general public's obsession, why is it common data/knowledge that the general public speeds? The point being, most people don't hold that opinion because most people speed.

The people who attend town council, county commissioner and state transportation committee meetings and yell about speed limits are the ones who want them lower and more heavily enforced. 

Of course my contention isn't that police unions push for ticket quotas or whatever. It's this: there are virtually infinitely more laws than LEOs can practically enforce on a regular basis. What's the end result? Only certain laws are enforced on a regular basis; usually the more serious ones. The operative calculus being the more LEOs the more laws that get regularly enforced and thus the "seriousness" bar is lowered.

But the same laws have been most commonly enforced forever, pretty much. And police departments really haven't expanded any more than the commensurate civilian population. In fact, due to budget cuts they're giving thousands of LEOs pink slips this year in my state.

My original point is that police unions are instrumental in escalating the size and scope of LE agencies.

The "scope" of LE agencies are often determined by state statute. There are specific duties, for example, that municipal police, county sheriff and state investigators perform. If you're talking about specialized units, that's more based on need. My town has a marine unit, but it's only because it has miles and miles of waterfront and lagoon communities to patrol, and is also home to a lot of on-water accidents that the underfunded state marine police can't handle. There are TONS of specialized units and equipment purchases that are removed from budgets each year - our town council just nixed the local department's idea to buy an advanced radiation detector device.

[TurboDan]

Interesting.  There was a story here recently where a 37 year veteran of the FoCo Police was forced into retirement (or else face charges) for DUI.  The problem is that he has a history of this, at one time having to be taken down at gunpoint by sheriff's deputies.  It makes you wonder how much tolerance there is within each department; should there be a one strike you're out policy, or three strikes? 

Also, a friend noticed the other day that he observed a state patrolman who looked like he'd been pulled over by a county sheriff.   At least the police around here are doing their jobs, but it's interesting that they even offered this guy the choice of retiring or prosecution; why not both?

Well, I don't think you should automatically lose a law enforcement job because of a DUI. However, I think you should face the same penalties than anyone would. If that means desk duty for the three or seven months your license is suspended (first time offenders in NJ get one of these depending on BAC) so be it. You screw up again, you should be terminated and allowed to apply for LE jobs again in five years (NJ law says you cannot be initially hired in LE if you've had a DUI in the previous five years).

FWIW, if there's any defense of this, it's not like they let her drive off tanked. They took her off the road, towed the car and called her a ride. While not common, I'm sure it DOES happen for civilians once in a blue moon.

[bing_oh]

My original point is that police unions are instrumental in escalating the size and scope of LE agencies.

I've worked for several unionized police departments and, in no case has the union ever had any say on the hiring of an officer or the number of officers hired by the department. Police unions have negotiating righs similar to those of any other unionized worker...pay scales, overtime, layoffs, benefits, etc. However, generally police department hiring is governed by civil service and the unions have absolutely no say in anything. In fact, every time I've been part of a unionized PD, I specifically cannot belong to the union while in my probationary period...usually one year after hire.

So, I must disagree with you, Cougs.

[TurboDan]

Actually, I've seen certain union locals actually advocate against hiring additional officers in favor of raises for guys currently OTJ. 

[bing_oh]

Before I make any comment, I really have to address a specific line in the article...

Law enforcement experts call it "professional courtesy" when officers give fellow cops a pass they would not give the average driver.

I don't agree with that statement. Most commonly, "professional courtesy" is in regards to something that an officer might very well give a pass for to an average citizen...say, speeding or some other routine traffic offense. Officers give countless warnings to average motorists for traffic offenses...generally, many more warnings than citations. Officers are much less likely to give "professional courtesy" for more serious traffic offenses, and almost never (in my area and in my experience) for criminal offenses that wouldn't warrant a warning to the average citizen.

So, what do I think about this trooper getting multiple passes for DUI? Frankly, I find it rather disgusting. Assuming that she was under the influence at a sufficient level to be considered impaired under the law, she should have been treated exactly as any other citizen would have been. I've never given a warning for a DUI to a citizen, and I wouldn't to a cop. Back in the day, it was a different story...I've heard the old timers talk about giving cops rides home after they were caught drinking and driving. Of course, I've heard the old timers talk about taking suits for themselves out of unlocked stores on alarm calls, too. That was then. This is now. It might be (and, apparently, is) different in other parts of the country, but "professional courtesy" only goes so far in my area and with my generation of LE.

[TurboDan]

Before I make any comment, I really have to address a specific line in the article...

I don't agree with that statement. Most commonly, "professional courtesy" is in regards to something that an officer might very well give a pass for to an average citizen...say, speeding or some other routine traffic offense. Officers give countless warnings to average motorists for traffic offenses...generally, many more warnings than citations. Officers are much less likely to give "professional courtesy" for more serious traffic offenses, and almost never (in my area and in my experience) for criminal offenses that wouldn't warrant a warning to the average citizen.

So, what do I think about this trooper getting multiple passes for DUI? Frankly, I find it rather disgusting. Assuming that she was under the influence at a sufficient level to be considered impaired under the law, she should have been treated exactly as any other citizen would have been. I've never given a warning for a DUI to a citizen, and I wouldn't to a cop. Back in the day, it was a different story...I've heard the old timers talk about giving cops rides home after they were caught drinking and driving. Of course, I've heard the old timers talk about taking suits for themselves out of unlocked stores on alarm calls, too. That was then. This is now. It might be (and, apparently, is) different in other parts of the country, but "professional courtesy" only goes so far in my area and with my generation of LE.

Thanks for your take on this. That's really the reason why I posted this. I lightly participate on a New Jersey LE forum that was recommended to me as a good place to network, find out about job opportunities, ask questions, etc. This topic was brought up there and most of the guys on the site were angry that it hit the papers, but they never flinched on whether she should have been arrested or not. On that they were squarely behind calling her a ride and being done with it. That really didn't sit well with me.

I've discussed it before, but courtesy is really taken to an extreme level here in New Jersey. It's to the point where if one officer does issue a citation to a fellow officer or a family member with a union card, his union rep will call yours and you'll be getting shit from all sides. And I've mentioned before how everyone who has a family member in LE gets a big, gold courtesy shield to stick in the front windshield - a very noticeable and public display of something that, if it's going to exist, should exist quietly IMO. I'm not by a long shot saying cops should hammer other cops with tickets. That's ridiculous. And if were to ever get into LE I certainly wouldn't be looking to jam up any fellow officers. But the extent to which this stuff has been taken in New Jersey is off the wall to the point where the public knows about it and it is really causing law enforcement as a whole to be the object of hatred and mistrust.