Article from: www.thenewspaper.com/news/06/691.asp
10/5/2005
New Jersey Cops Still Mad at Virginia Police
The dispute over a speeding New Jersey police convoy continues to affect North-South police relations.
New Jersey police officials appear unable to forget the September 18 incident where a Virginia lawman attempted to slow a convoy of Garden State police from returning from service in the gulf coast region. An angry Passaic County, New Jersey Sheriff Jerry Speziale questions the integrity of the Augusta County, Virginia deputy sheriff who said Speziale's convoy was driving 95 MPH on Interstate 81 in violation of Virginia's reckless driving law.
"The Virginia authorities never produced any documentation, any radar, any evidence," Speziale's spokesman, Bill Maer, told Media General News Service. "All we have is their word, and we have not found them to be very truthful in the past, so we have no reason to believe them now."
Other police officials agree with Speziale that police should be exempt from the laws binding other citizens.
"So they were hogging the left lane -- whoop-de-do," said Frank Ferreyra, president of the New York State Fraternal Order of Police.
Speziale called Augusta County Sheriff Randy Fisher last week to continue his complaint. "We ended up agreeing to disagree," Fisher told Media General News Service.
Article Excerpt:"Why was Virginia the only state that failed to provide a police escort?" [Joseph Occhipinti, executive director of the National Police Defense Foundation] asked, arguing the convoys were vulnerable to possible terrorists attacks.
Source: Convoy stop sparks debate (Media General News Service, 10/5/2005)
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