Part-time cops employed to patrol state parks - including Long Island's Jones Beach -
are outnumbered, occasionally unreliable and sometimes too old to be effective law
enforcers, according to a police union official.
About 500 New York State Park Police officers are assigned to 168 parks and 35 state
historic sites around the state in summer. Many of them are retired cops, and half of them are employed only part-time as a cost-cutting measure.
Officer Tom Coulter, a Park Police union president assigned to Bear Mountain State Park, said the seasonal officer program "is a Band-Aid that has fallen off."
His union wants the state to hire only full-time officers. "We don't have the men to man the posts, and the state just closes their eyes to it," said Coulter. "The system is falling apart."
Law Enforcement sources have cited a string of incidents in recent years that under-
line the dangers of employing part-time cops.
One part-timer lost his Glock 9 mm pistol in the sand at Jones Beach, a source said.
"He came to work every day with a toy gun in his holster so his boss wouldn't notice," the source said. "He found a guy with a metal detector to look for his gun in the sand, and the civilian eventually found it."
Another officer watched a burglary in progress and refused to make an arrest, and instead described what was going on to a radio dispatcher.
And a prank by two part-timers went wrong after they handcuffed a state emergency medical technician to a stretcher and threw him into the swimming pool "as a joke." The technician had to be rescued by lifeguards, one source said.
State Park Police Chief Michael Daly defended hiring seasonal officers, some of whom are retired detectives, sergeants and lieutenants, who "come with a wealth of experience."
"Could these things happen? Sure," said Daly. "But for every one of those, you have five officers" who are dedicated and professional. (End). |
