JANUARY 9, 2016, 10:30 PM LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, JANUARY 10, 2016, 12:15 AM
BY MIKE KELLY
RECORD COLUMNIST |
THE RECORD
HAZLETON, Pa. — A few weeks ago, the phone rang at Jimmy’s Quick Lunch, a popular café that has dished out soup, sandwiches, eggs, neighborly advice and gossip in the center of this rugged former coal-mining town for almost seven decades.
The caller was not placing a takeout order for one of Jimmy’s legendary hot dogs with gravy fries and a milk shake. Instead, Paterson’s civilian police director, Jerry Speziale, was on the line asking if Jimmy’s longtime owner, James Grohol, could give him the name of a neighborhood crime watch activist.
“Maybe he just wanted to get a feel for things,” Grohol said the other day as he reflected on the phone call while flipping burgers in Jimmy’s kitchen.
That the top police administrator in New Jersey’s third-largest city, 115 miles away, would be interested in a neighborhood crime watch in Hazleton, Pa., may seem odd. But phone calls from Speziale are likely to become commonplace now that he has agreed to run Hazleton’s Police Department as its interim chief while he continues to supervise policing in Paterson.
Moonlighting during off-hours has long been a fact of police life. Some officers work nights as private security guards. Others offer advice as consultants or spend weekends as contractors, driving buses or doing other non-police jobs. Some teach college-level classes in policing and criminal justice.
But the idea of the top law enforcement administrator in one city running a department in another state may present a whole new twist on police moonlighting and raises potential conflicts, some experts say.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/kelly-jerry-speziale-s-new-beat-covers-two-states-1.1488391
