By Senior Correspondent Desirée Taylor
NJ Today
Fallout continues following a viral dashboard video featuring a foul-mouthed exchange between a state trooper and two Bergen County plain clothes police officers who’d pulled over a vehicle on the New Jersey Turnpike.
“It is an issue of public safety as I said because you have these men screaming at each other and they all have weapons. That would be very frightening to me,” said Bergen County Freeholder Joan Voss.
After a review by the State Police Office of Professional Standards, no disciplinary action was taken against the trooper. But that wasn’t the case for the two Bergen County police officers involved in the incident.
“Chief Higgins immediately investigated the two officers involved, who were stellar officers otherwise, but they were disciplined because of the incident,” said Bergen County Executive Kathleen Donovan.
Bergen County Police Chief Brian Higgins wasn’t available for comment, but in a statement he said, “Both officers were immediately relieved of their assignments and put on administrative time. They were then both re-assigned to the Office of Professional Standards as the investigation progressed.”
The county executive is satisfied with the chief’s handling of the situation. But some freeholders demand more information and further investigation. And Freeholder Voss says this incident shows changes are needed at the county police department.
“Bergen County’s the only county that has a county police force. All the other counties have merged their county police with the county sheriff’s department and I said because of the lack of communication, the merger would be something that would be very beneficial,” Voss said.
When asked if he thinks the incident is an example of why a merger needs to happen, Bergen County Freeholder John Mitchell said, “I think it’s part in parcel. I think the other piece of it is the amount of money that the taxpayers can save.”
This push to merge the departments has put most of the freeholders at odds with the county executive, who called their latest attempt political grandstanding.
“They play politics when they say that because they know, because we went through this all last year and we had a court decision that said just what I told you. I have no intention of merging the sheriff with the county police for many, many reasons. It’s a very bad thing to do. The county police have been here 96 years. They’ve done great work. They’re gonna continue to do great work,” Donovan said.
Donovan considers the merger a dead issue. She says the county police department has taken the necessary steps to try to prevent another incident like this one from happening again.