Ridgewood Officers volunteered their time to assist the Waldwick Police Department during this difficult time.
As Waldwick mourns policeman’s sudden death, fellow cops cover
JULY 18, 2014, 2:07 PM LAST UPDATED: SATURDAY, JULY 19, 2014, 4:02 PM
BY ALLISON PRIES AND EMILY MASTERS
STAFF WRITERS
THE RECORD
Police officers from neighboring towns mobilized Friday to support their grieving Waldwick colleagues, providing 24-hour coverage for the borough so that the town’s officers could mourn the sudden death of 32-year-old Patrolman Christopher Goodell.
Waldwick’s police cruisers remained parked at headquarters while officers from nearby towns answered all emergency calls. And they will continue to do so until Wednesday morning, the day after Goodell’s funeral.
“It’s the natural thing,” Ridgewood Police Chief John Ward said. “Our guys are volunteering to be there. These are the events you never, ever need to ask people to step up for.”
Goodell, a decorated Marine Corps veteran who joined the Waldwick force five years ago, was killed around 1:30 a.m. Thursday when a tractor-trailer rammed into his parked police car on the shoulder of Route 17 while he was conducting a radar patrol.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/as-waldwick-mourns-policeman-s-sudden-death-fellow-cops-cover-1.1053964#sthash.G6Ms8jjW.oTqqVp3y.dpuf
Someone will post something negative because in Ridgewood no good deed goes unpunished. That being said I was to thank The Ridgewood Police for doing this
that’s very nice.
Good work, and perhaps a model of how we can merge the local police departments in Ridgewood, Waldwick, Ho-Ho-Kus, Glen Rock and Midland Park.
Excellent idea, and long overdue.
#3+#4 it doesn’t work for the surrounding towns, why should they merge with a larger busier town, because the town doesn’t want to hire enough police officers. The tax payer in the surrounding towns would be supporting the municipal budget in ridgewood with no gain or advantage to the smaller town.
Five police chiefs, five HQs, with five separate budgets for 14 square miles with 57,000 people. That’s one police department for every 11,000 people. Seems like overkill when these forces are already willing to work with each other anyway ? The story above shows it can be done smoothly.
I told you that no good deed goes unpunished. Let watch where 3,4 and 6 go with their posting.
Nothing of the sort #7. Perhaps we could use this tragedy to effect positive change that would prevent a lone officer at night on Rt 17. Merging the forces could help prevent tragic losses like this. That would be a solid legacy to this officer.
just keep the police of rt 17 it’s a state road . leet the state police do that, we need to keep local police safe, they have other things to do in the towns.
Well said #9. Just ask yourself, “What is a young officer from Waldwick doing out on a State highway by himself in the middle of the night?” Was he out there protecting the Borough of Waldwick? Or did someone order him to generate revenue? The State Police should be patrolling on Rt. 17, not the WPD. What a senseless tragedy.
The state police are charged with patrolling the interstates ie: 80, 78, 95, parkway, the Bcpd, is supposed the patrol the parks, and county propertys, their traffic division does the local highways but the only work from 7am to 11pm they don’t have enuff men to staff 24/7 so the locals do the highways, on the midnight shift calls for service go down so the people in town are not getting shortchanged if a local cop does radar on the highway,