By Charles Hack and Ron Zeitlinger
The Jersey Journal
Ciopyright 2008 The Jersey Journal
HOBOKEN, N.J. — A volunteer emergency medical technician who appeared in racy photos with Hoboken SWAT team members and waitresses carrying the police officers’ guns outside a Hooters restaurant in Tuscaloosa, Ala., has been sworn in as a city police officer, even as cops who were on the same trip have been hit with charges over their conduct.
Josue Velez, 22, was one of 14 recruits added to the force in January, two months before the city slapped nine cops with administrative charges following an investigation into the conduct of SWAT officers on trips to Louisiana in 2005 and 2006.
The Hooters stop was made on the way home from the 2006 trip.
Police and city officials have said the trips — in the fall of 2005 and during Mardi Gras in 2006 — were to bring relief supplies and provide security following Hurricane Katrina, but the officers were never authorized to exercise law enforcement powers and were not part of a state contingent that was authorized to do so following the hurricane.
Michael Lenz, Hoboken’s former chief financial officer and a local activist, said that hiring a person who is implicated in a scandal while SWAT joined Hoboken cops for controversial pics disciplining others smacks of “scapegoating.”
“A dead fish stinks from the head, and so it does in Hoboken,” Lenz said. “The blame lands squarely at the top.”
Nine officers — including four of the five whose bias lawsuit against the department triggered the scandal — have been hit with departmental charges in connection with the SWAT trips and the former commander of the now-disbanded unit, Lt. Angelo Andriani, has been suspended. The penalties they face range from a 10-day suspension to termination.
“That appointment clearly demonstrates the bias by Hoboken against my clients,” said Louis Zayas , the lawyer for the cops who filed the suit. “Obviously my clients are being treated more harshly for reporting misconduct than somebody participating in it.”
Velez, now at the Police Academy for six months, was sworn in at City Hall by Public Safety Director Bill Bergin. Velez is a member of the Hoboken Volunteer Ambulance Corps and a former corrections officer.
He could not be reached for comment last week.
He is seen in a number of photographs — some in extremely suggestive poses — cavorting with local women in Louisiana and at the Hooters in Tuscaloosa, where waitresses are seen handling the cops’ guns.
Bergin said the officers facing charges violated departmental rules and state regulations, whereas Velez, as a civilian, had not. Each person joining the police force has to undergo tests and face a lengthy investigation that includes a residency test, fingerprinting and criminal check, he said.
“This kid had not violated any regulations or done anything against the law,” Bergin said.
Vince Lombardi, president of the Patrolman’s Benevolent Association, said it’s not unusual for an EMT to be included in a SWAT mission.
“The best case scenario is to have a SWAT member who is a certified EMT,” said Lombardi, a detective in the department. “But it’s not unusual to have a civilian assigned to the SWAT team, in case a SWAT team member is injured.”
One cop on the SWAT trip, who didn’t want to be named, said there was at least one cop on the trip who was an EMT, making Velez’s presence there unnecessary.
“Lt. Andriani put Velez, who was a civilian, in harm’s way by having him on the trip,” said the officer.
Police Chief Carmen LaBruno, who is seen in a picture with a woman flashing her breasts during the 2006 trip, is reportedly negotiating a retirement package with the city and his planned departure from the force is seen as a result of the scandal.
City officials have said LaBruno told them he took vacation days to go on the trip, though his plane fare was paid out of a SWAT checking account funded by contributions from the officers. That fund is repotedly the subject of a fedeal investigation.