Chief Ward of Ridgewood PD on decoy duty photo by Boyd Loving
Police brass joining rank and file on the beat
Sunday August 25, 2013, 11:08 PM
By MIKE KELLY
RECORD COLUMNIST
Try to imagine the director of the FBI arresting a bank robber. Or New York City’s police commissioner ticketing jaywalkers on Broadway.
That may seem absurd in large police agencies, but for more and more small New Jersey towns, it’s the way of the future. Police brass, including some chiefs, are being pulled from behind their desks and dispatched back to the kind of street patrols they did years before, as young cops.
It’s not as if top cops asked for this — not all of them, anyway. But many small police departments are finding themselves brass-heavy, with high-ranking supervisors outnumbering rank-and-file officers.
So the top cops are becoming beat cops.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/columnists/Kelly_Police_brass_joining_rank_and_file_on_the_beat.html#sthash.MPraUu6U.dpuf
This was bound to happen sooner or latter….. everyone understands that changes have to be made. The attached link story by Mr. Kelly trys to clarify it for us.
That is a lot of money to pay for the chief to act as a decoy. Could get a summer hire to do it cheaper. Maybe we are too top heavy.
We are so top heavy we don’t have money for summer hires
At least he’ll get off his ass and participate, Ward is workin with a skeleton crew. down from 52 to 39 or 38. Can’t use a summer hire due to insurance regs, and possibility of injury. supervisors down from 14 to 10, calls for service up from 8500 to 24000 app over the past 10 years, so at least he’ll go out and do something. It doesn’t affect his job he’s always available on cell phone, maybe the new VM will let him run his dept.
With all his salary and experience it still seems like a waste of money. Too many “chiefs” and not enough Indians.
When is Chief Ward there? I always see him working PSE&G jobs.
rwd is far from top heavy look around at surrounding depts.
He gets paid the same whether he sits in an office or answers calls so there is no waste of money. At least he doesn’t sit in the deli like the last chief.
25 police officers and 15 upper level members. Maybe there really are too many chiefs. If you read the roster there is a friends and family special going on.
https://rpd.ridgewoodnj.net/index.php/department-roster
We do not need an officer and a supervisor sitting at a desk all shift. 2 more that should be on the road. If there is a ‘walk in’, then some clerk at the headquarters can call an officer in from patrol.
If our dedicated emergency service personell are good enough to control traffic, they should be allowed to do the PSEG details as a ‘bonus’.
Perhaps utilize them in the CBD for traffic duty and parking enforcement.
#9 your info is incorrect there are 10 supervisors 4 sgt, 4 lt’s 1 capt. 1 chief and there are 23 ptl’s left due to attrition and retirement.
10 supervisors and 25 patrol? That correction does not make the organization look any better. Are they allowed to “supervise” friends and family?
The supervisor # is not high the ptl # is low rwd has the lowest number of cops to residents ratio in all of Bergen county. to the best of my knowledge supervisors supervising relatives has not been allowed since chief Lipuma , and captain Landers, allowed Bill Amoruso to supervise his brother Sean. But that’s 5 years ago. Nepotisim, is virtually impossible in the hiring process due to civil service rules and reg’s. The State police/FBI, UCR, report recommends Rwd pd carry 56 cops, the town paid a lot for a study several years ago that said no less than 44, cops believe me the dept. is thin ( manpower wise)
Well, if maybe the remaining force wasn’t paid so much, maybe they could have more patrolmen…..
This is going to get worse until it gets better. Only way to fix the comp problem, short of cutting salaries, is to freeze comp and benefits for a number of years. Spiraling comp increases over decades have caused the problem. It’s certainly not due to a lack of taxes.
Thed.
We have a certain amount of money earmarked for law enforcement. Divide it up among 44 or 56
The numbers may seem low to you but what would they do if there were more of them? It is not like we have out of control crime. What shift would they be working?
I usually see 2 or 3 squad cars parked at Van neste square doing nothing. It would appear to be sufficiently protected.
Van Neste is the epicenter of crme.
Is there a supervisor for the Van Neste ‘precinct’?
#16 there are 2 days and nights if there were more cops (especially new ones) there would be less OT, more summonses issued, more opportunity for the cops to be pro active, the newer cops cost less, so there would be less strain on the budget, at the end of 14, into 15 there are 5 or 6 cops that will retire due to contracts and new pension regs, the dept. better hire soon or there will be a serious manpower shortage, the see where the ot goes.