30
COVER STORY
NEW JERSEY COPS ■ FEBRUARY 2014
Here to
Help
The approach Keith Bennett takes to
all endeavors on and off the job
makes him a natural for PFRS Trustee
■ BY MITCHELL KRUGEL
Paging through 21 years of police service might make it tough
to find that one moment that captures the reason for being a
cop, for becoming a cop, for protecting and serving amidst forever increasing boundaries and barriers.
Keith Bennett doesn’t need much time to identify that call,
that life-reaffirming answer. In early 2011, he responded to an
elderly lady who had been mugged on the Boardwalk. The way
cops had been laid off in Atlantic City, this type of mugging had
become all too common the past few months. Bennett
described the victim as “devastatingly upset” because she lost
her purse in the mugging, and, more horrifying, in the purse
were pictures of her grandchildren.
“When I was able to catch that guy and return the purse, you
should have seen the hugs,” Bennett described. “When I tell my
grandkids stories about being a
cop, it will be about those hugs.”
A help-is-on-the-way passion
compelled and propelled Bennett
long before he became an Atlantic
City cop, Local 24 member, Local
24 State Delegate or NJ State PBA
Executive Board Member. Imagine how bringing his passion, his
drive, his helping hands to being
a trustee for the Police and Fire Retirement System (PFRS) could
make a difference?
“When (Executive Vice-President) Keith (Dunn) and I started thinking and asking around about who would be the ideal
candidate for the NJ State PBA to endorse for PFRS Trustee, the
name Keith Bennett kept coming back to us,” State PBA President Tony Wieners revealed. “Keith has responded every time we
have called on him. And what really impresses me is the way he
PFRS Trustee Election: Ballots go out on
“Keith has responded every time we have called on him. And what
really impresses me is the way he keeps the members of his Local
motivated and positive despite all the well-documented challenges
they have had to deal with in Atlantic City the past few years.”
TONY WIENERS
keeps the members of his Local motivated and positive despite
all the well-documented challenges they have had to deal with
in Atlantic City the past few years.”
See if you can determine the common threads among the following words and phrases (hint – there are two):
Encourage. Support. Back. Abet. Furnish another with something needed, especially when the need comes at a particular
time. Relieve one's wants or necessities. Furthering another's
efforts. Give timely relief in difficulty or distress. Promote. Ame-