The President’s Message
NEW JERSEY STATE
POLICEMEN’S BENEVOLENT
ASSOCIATION
EXECUTIVE BOARD
Attention please, my Union
Brothers & Sisters…
PATRICK COLLIGAN
State President
MARC KOVAR
Executive Vice-President
Mark Butler 1st Vice-President
Peter Andreyev 2nd Vice-President
Jerry Tolomeo 3rd Vice-President
Andy Haase 4th Vice-President
Henry Werner 5th Vice-President
Kenneth Burkert 6th Vice-President
Michael Pellegrino 7th Vice-President
Domenic Cappella 8th Vice-President
Mark Aurigemma 9th Vice-President
Manuel Corte 10th Vice-President
Mark Messinger 11th Vice-President
Eugene Dello 12th Vice-President
Michael Kaniuk Financial Secretary
George Miller Recording Secretary
John Monsees Treasurer
James Crilly Trustee
Keith Bennett Trustee
Richard Kott Trustee
Richard Brown Trustee
Bruce Chester Trustee
Margaret Hammond Trustee
Frederick Ludd Trustee
Luke Sciallo Sergeant-at-Arms
Frank Cipully Sergeant-at-Arms
John Cernek Sergeant-at-Arms
Kevin Hibbitt Sergeant-at-Arms
Ed Carattini Jr. Sergeant-at-Arms
Michael Freeman Sergeant-at-Arms
Bryan Flannia Sergeant-at-Arms
Robert Ormezzano Sergeant-at-Arms
Joseph Biamonte Sergeant-at-Arms
Terrance Benson Sergeant-at-Arms
4
NEW JERSEY COPS
■
MAY 2015
Patrick
Colligan
I write this on the very day our NYPD Brother Brian Moore will be laid to rest,
and as we are about to enter the week that means the most to us in law enforcement – National Police Week, the solemn week when we gather at police memorials throughout the country and honor those that have made the ultimate
sacrifice. Tens of thousands of us gather in Washington D.C. on May 13th and
attend the candlelight vigil at the National Law Enforcement Memorial in the
shadows of where more than 20,000 names of our fallen are carved into the
granite walls. This has been a tragic year for law enforcement in New Jersey, and
a devastating year for our profession.
I don’t have to tell anybody that proudly pins a badge to his or her chest and
holsters a weapon every day that we have not exactly had a banner year. We now
have “journalists” that want to catch us when we make mistakes or try and make a sensational
police scandal out of what would have been just another routine story. They are the same journalists that want to milk our funerals for every tear shed when we die.
We have “legislators” right here in our own great state that want us to have an extra
opportunity to get indicted with special prosecutors and special grand juries based solely on
their perception of how they feel a grand jury should have acted. We all watch with stunned
amazement when six of our fellow officers in Baltimore get charged by an inexperienced “prosecutor” to quell a riot without any semblance of an investigation. Race baiting opportunists are
waiting to pounce the moment they think they can advance their shameless agenda, regardless
of who and what they leave in their wake.
Unfortunately, the list goes on and on and is growing by the day. Our job has gotten exponentially harder due to people that have no idea what we do and what we see every day, or why we
even do some of the things we do. Someone can watch a few episodes of Cops and be a certified
expert on police policy and procedure.
Our job isn’t always pretty. Nobody calls 9-1-1 when a child makes the honor roll or a spouse
gets a big promotion. Cell block extractions don’t happen because some inmate is getting moved
into a nicer cell with an ocean view. We aren’t always taking a picture with a kid who wants to
grow up and be a law enforcer, and we don’t save a life every day. Sometimes, what we do is ugly
and violent and doesn’t look good on the 6 o’clock news or YouTube. Justified? Thankfully, almost
always. We aren’t infallible either, though, and those that hate and despise us solely because of
what we do and what we represent certainly have been given enough to talk about it lately from
a few among us.
These are the times when we should be reflecting about our profession, who we are and what
we represent. Besides our brothers and sisters in the fire service, no other profession on the
planet grieves like we do. There are no websites or national memorials dedicated to fallen office
workers or accountants, and they don’t travel one hundred or two hundred miles when one of
them that they never even met before dies. When we are off-duty, none of us pass a motor vehicle
stop on the side of the road without making sure things look OK, and we still take a last glance
in our rear view mirror after we pass.
These are exactly the times we need each other more than ever. New Jersey traditionally had
a law enforcement bond that was unequaled and envied throughout the country, and I’m watching it disintegrate before my eyes. We are losing the respect our profession deserves, and we can
only look in the mirror and see why. Border wars and feuds belong on a high school sports field,
not in a patrol car, jail or a police department locker room. We are all facing the same pressures
from the public, politicians and, unfortunately, even some of your own administrations. And I’m
not expecting the pendulum to swing anytime in the near future.
Our brothers and sisters in law enforcement, regardless of their union affiliation or the patch
that ѡ