My hometown Edison NJ has slightly over 100K people, an upper middle class north side and a more blue collar working class south side. 1/4 Indian; nearly 1/4 Asian (Korean, Taiwanese, Vietnamese, Chinese); 1/2 White.
There are 170 police officers, down from 215 in 2012. Currently up to 20 officers are under investigation for a variety of illegal grifts.
5 already charged in a no-show scheme, in which they pretended to do overnight security jobs, that they actually didn't do. They netted a combined $840K in 2017 & 2018 for work they never did.
The most brazen were collecting pay for two or three off-duty shifts at the same time. Such shifts pay between $40-$90 an hour. 5 officers fraudulently made $80k - $100K a year this way. The average police officer salary in Edison is around $120K per year.
It's ludicrous all the illegal ish Edison police have gotten up to the past 25 years (30 officers have been forced to resign or resigned with charges pending in the past 20 years).
- With an on-going large-scale internal power struggle in the Edison Police Dept, one policeman
firebombed his police chief's home at 3:AM in 2013. Got a 20 year sentence, not eligible for parole for 17 years.
- Another Edison officer came on duty and then
robbed a bank! Was caught easily since he used his wife's car for the getaway. (these are clever fellows)
- A drunk officer
crashed his private car and then ran away from the scene and hid in the bushes naked. Claimed he didn't want to get his leather seats mucked up after he'd been swimming or somesuch. Was fired in 2006 for that incident, but reinstated by the courts in 2007. A decade later, no surprise, he was one of the worst offenders in the no-show job fraud.
- another tried to trade
cocaine for sex with a prostitute, who happened to be working as an informer for the neighboring town's police. He was fired after he failed a drug test.
- In 2016, another officer punched in for his shift, then drove his unmarked police car directly to a neighboring town where he slashed his girlfriend's tires. Caught on a security cam doing the deed. Charged with stalking and criminal mischief. Had been using police resources to track and pursue his ex-girlfriend. Somewhat minor, but this sparked the investigation that uncovered all the no-show jobs, plus a police illegal steroid ring, and misuse of running license plates.
The corruption is so bad and widespread that the county had to take over the illegal pay/so-show job investigation. Edit: actually the county has been doing the internal investigations of Edison police since 2011. Since the Edison police are too corrupt to be trusted.
And these are just the ones who got caught. Who knows what other illegalities went undetected. Policing the burbs is pretty easy work without much risk. I can't imagine the wealthy Indian migrants are causing much trouble. Good pay and can retire with full pension after just 20 years.
And yet the Edison police force has had an on-going problem with corruption and criminality for the past 2 or 3 decades. Imagine what goes on in large urban forces!
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