The NJ Police Chief Magazine - Vol. 26, Number 10 | Page 7

The New Jersey Police Chief Magazine | June 2020
From the NJSACOP Archives….June
Chief Peter Siccardi
(Bergen County PD)
1912
The Friday, June 7 th edition of the Central New Jersey Home News reported that members of the
NJSACOP, “which was organized last February,” met in New Brunswick the prior day and held a
“two-hour session in Elks’ Hall, when they talked over the best methods and plans to put a further
check to crime in the state.” The paper reported that following the business session, “the chiefs took
a jaunt throughout the town in automobiles, and at 6 o’clock sat down to a fine spread at the Mansion
House and heard some inspiring speeches.”
1917
Chief William Linderman of the Merchantville Police Department, a
former member of the US Secret Service, arrested a suspected
saboteur that he caught in the act of cutting Railroad wires used
by the Federal government. A bulletin had been put out following
the recent cutting of wires in the area that were leased by the national government for
transmission of messages between Washington and New York , and a third wire used by the
Pennsylvania Railroad for the handling of troop and munition train. A large number of Secret
Service agents and railroad detectives had been keeping watch over the area. Following
another failure of the wires, tests showed that the failure occurred in the Ellisburg section of
Delaware (now Cherry Hill) Township. At 3 o’clock in the morning Chief Linderman was
notified and he drove to Ellisburg. As reported in the New York Tribune:
After walking some distance, Linderman came upon a man on top of a pole cutting the
same three wires a sixth time. At the point of a revolver he ordered the man to
descend, and while he was coming down, two other men leaped up from the brush
and made off across the meadows.
1921
A giant figure in New Jersey policing history, as well as that of the
NJSACOP and the IACP, Bergen County Police Chief Peter Siccardi
was inducted into membership in the Association during the June
State Chiefs Meeting, as was Weehawken Chief August Klassen and
Harrison Chief Andrew Walsh.
Chief August Klassen (Weehawken
PD) and Chief William Schoepflin
(Absecon PD)
1930
Absecon Police Chief William Schoepflin was shot and killed on June
3 rd when he went to investigate suspicious activity at a house in
the city.
Chief Harold Davison (Red Bank PD)
and Chief Thomas Marks (Long
Branch PD)
1946
Red Bank Chief Harold Davison passed away following a long
illness on Sunday, June 22 nd . A 24-year veteran of the
department, he had been chief for 8 years. Chief Davison, an
active member of the NJSACOP, was 49 years old. He was a
veteran of World War I.
1947
Graduation ceremonies were conducted on various dates
throughout the state for new police officers that successfully
completed a training course jointly sponsored by the New
Jersey State Association of Chiefs of Police, the Newark office
of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the New Jersey
State Police. “Zone Training Schools” were established nearly
20 years prior by the NJSACOP in the absence of other training for new police officers. In
Long Branch, 28 patrol officers received their graduation diplomas by Newark FBI SAC Samuel
K. McKee. Long Branch Chief Thomas Marks served as chairman of the School Committee. In
Paterson, 55 officers received their diplomas from NJSACOP President Ryan Vandervalk, Chief
of the Hawthorne Police Department. SAC McKee was the keynote speaker at the event.
1962
The 50 th annual conference of the New Jersey State Association of Chiefs of Police was
convened at the Hotel Essex & Sussex in Spring Lake. In an address to the conference, John
Malone, Assistant Director of the FBI to the delegates that “the old image of the policeman is
gone.” The Assistant Director declared that “brains have replaced brawn in detection work,
and criminals are feeling the long arm of technological advances.” Mr. Malone stated that in
contemporary society “law enforcement is a profession of honor and integrity. Tragically, a
few isolated cases still occur where officers betray trust through corruption. This is becoming
increasingly rare.”
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