End of the Road

In 2008 we first blogged about Carbon Motors and their ambitious plans to manufacture and sell a purpose-built police car.  In 2012 we blogged about Carbon Motors again, concerning their having been denied a $310 million Department of Energy loan under the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing program.

It appears now that the denial of that loan dealt a death blow to Carbon Motors.  The company has allowed the lease to expire on their manufacturing facility, the employees are gone, and the company web site has been shut down.

Carbon had leased office and factory space in a former Visteon Corporation plant in Connersville, Indiana, and claimed to have taken thousands of orders for its its E7 diesel-powered police cruiser.  But at the end of March, the lease was not renewed.

After the DOE loan was denied, Carbon tried to raise addition money by unveiling a purpose-built riot van, but nothing further appears to have come of those plans.

Carbon Motors has sputtered to a stop before ever getting on the road.

That's a Fact

Recently, in a town not far from the home of the Badge Company of New Jersey, negotiations were completed on a new contract with the local police union.

As with all such contract negotiations, there were competing interests to be served, including the need to keep any increase in the municipal budget below the cap of 2% as directed by the governor.

The negotiations were handled by representatives of the union and representatives of the town, but with a distinction as noted by one of the town’s elected councilmen: “We did not use lawyers,” he said.  “They cost money.”

Can't-Stand-Up Routine

It sounds like a cheap joke:  How many police officers does it take to administer a breath test to a woman who then blows a .217, nearly three times the legal limit?

In Jonesboro, Arkansas, this week the answer is two, one to administer the test and one to prop up the woman, so drunk that she could not stand.

So drunk that she crashed her car into a house.

So drunk that she to attempted to continue her drive with the next available vehicle.

So drunk that the vehicle she selected was a child’s battery-powered Power Wheels truck.

 (Maybe she thought it was a Prius?)

Oh, one more thing:  So drunk that she had neglected to put on pants.

What's That White Stuff? Again!

Twice previously we have blogged about brilliant criminals who were captured because police simply followed their footprints in the snow.  This first of these was in South Carolina, and we had at least some sympathy for the clueless crook because snowfall is so infrequent there.  But the second episode took place right here in New Jersey, so there is no excuse other than what the late comedian Steve Allen termed "dumbth."

Dumbth, apparently, is not uncommon, because this past Friday two guys held up a barber shop in Mercer County and shot one of the employees, then fled... leaving footprints in the newly-fallen snow.  Those footprints were among the clues the police used to identify and arrest the dynamic duo shortly after the crime.

Fortunately, the barber shop employee who was shot was not mortally wounded.  At the moment, jail, not snow, is where the two crooks are cooling their heels.

Cold Case

Yesterday the high temperature for the day failed to reach 20 degrees Fahrenheit here in the hometown of the Badge Company of New Jersey.

And, not three miles away, two stray dogs, a German Shepherd and a Great Dane, fell through the thin ice into a small pond. Struggling to free themselves, the icy cold quickly sapped their strength.

Clinton Township Sergeant Matt Wilson pulled them out.

Neither of these dogs is a small dog. Sergeant Wilson got a rope around the Great Dane and got the German Shepherd under his arm.

Once the dogs were safe and in the care of a veterinarian, Sergeant Wilson changed into dry clothes and continued his shift.

Sergeant Wilson rightly deserves praise for what he did, but his actions are typical of how police officers everywhere do indeed "protect and serve" all community interests.

How Drunk?

The officer did not need a Breathalyzer to determine that the woman he stopped shortly after midnight this past Saturday night in a northern New Jersey town had been drinking.  He needed only to be, as all police officers are, observant.  She

• was slurring her speech

• dd not know where she was

• did not know that moments earlier she had crashed her car into a stone wall

• and was unable to maintain her balance.

Oh, one more thing:  She was thoroughly unaware that on a January night in one of the colder portions of rural New Jersey, she was wearing only a jacket.  Only.  Nothing else.

The officer saw a dress and other articles of clothing in the back seat of the car, so he retrieved them and instructed the woman to get dressed.  This task proved to be challenging for the woman, who, after several minutes, succeeded in putting on her dress inside-out.

She was charged with driving while intoxicated, refusal to submit to breath testing, leaving the scene of an accident, careless driving, failure to produce motor vehicle documentation and, in a wonderfully ironic application of the statute, failure to wear a seatbelt.

Dancing with the Chief

In 2009, the Chief of Police in Ocean City, Maryland, won the "Dancing with the Delmarva Stars" charity fundraising event, besting 12 other contestants.

If you look at the photo and think that the Chief looks sharp in his black outfit with the white necktie, you’ll be wrong. The gentleman is Bill Goschen, but the Chief is Bernadette DiPino, the woman on the left.

"Delmarva," in case you do not know, refers the peninsula on which the resort town of Ocean City is located. The three states of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia share that peninsula.

Ocean City has a year-round population of just 7,200, but over the course of a year more than eight million tourists visit the town.

But Chief DiPino has recently taken on a task that is sure to be more challenging than either dancing in competition or being Chief of Ocean City. On January first of this year she took over as Chief of the Sarasota, Florida, police department. Sarasota is also a vacation destination, but it has a year-round population more than seven times greater than Ocean City. It’s a sprawling 25-square mile city.

Sarasota city officials have high hopes for Chief DiPino, an outsider hired to take over a department that in recent years has suffered from the fiscal squeeze and citizen complaints.

Chief DiPino is part of a family of police. Her father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all served, and her daughter is an officer in Maryland today. Five generations!