Bahamas Acting Police
Commissioner Anthony
Ferguson welcomes
NJ State PBA members
to “paradise” with a
request to make
convention week
a time for “renewal
of mind, body
and purpose.”
Piggy Banking
Members of Monmouth County Local 50 and the Monmouth
County Conference accentuated the Good and Welfare portion
of the convention by presenting a $10,000 donation to the PBA
Survivor & Welfare fund from funds raised at the annual Pension
Pig Roast on July 15.
“Every time we see Josh, he looks better and stronger,” the PBA
president complimented. “At the state trooper’s funeral in Atlan-
tic City last December, he was moving pretty well in a wheelchair.
Then I saw him at a hockey tournament with a walker. Yesterday in
the lobby he was walking his daughters to the bathroom. This man
is a walking, talking miracle.”
For more about the miracle that is Josh Vadell, see page 50. Then
check out page 52 to review one of law enforcement’s most illustri-
ous achievements, a case study of the Pulse Nightclub shooting in
Orlando as told by Lieutenant Scott Smith, the SWAT team deputy
commander who led the Orlando PD response on the night of June
16, 2016.
Underscoring the theme of rejuvenation that this convention
prescribed, Ewing Township Local 111 State Delegate and Peer Liai-
son Committee Chair Mike Pellegrino stepped to the podium along
with Dr. Gene Stefanelli, the PBA’s director of clinical services, to
submit a reminder about handling the force that is wearing down
so many officers. Dr. Stef, and his clinical services colleague Dr.
48
NEW JERSEY COPS
■ OCTOBER 2017
Michael Bizzarro, reminded members to continue to guard against
one of the ongoing challenges to law enforcement officers’ well-be-
ing.
“The word for the day is stress,” Dr. Stef stressed. “Stress and
anxiety over critical incidents can boil over. If you go three months
without addressing it, then it is no longer acute. It becomes chron-
ic, and once it becomes chronic, it’s a serous problem. Keep on be-
ing your brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, because the only one who
understands it is somebody who has gone through it.”
The takeaway from convention week might have been best em-
phasized by one of the State PBA’s friends in labor, Pete Stilianessis,
president of the State Troopers NCO. Stilianessis came to paradise
to soak up some of the renewal of mind, body and purpose and
presented a valuable closing thought to members:
“There has to be a togetherness,” he asserted. “If we all dig in to-
gether and do what we are doing now, you will see times like you
have never seen before.”d