Props to the The Bergen Record<\/i> for their coverage of Bridgegate.<\/p>\n
Today, they revealed that senior staff at the Port Authority Police were aiding the bridge closures, and the rank and file cops are talking<\/a>:<\/p>\n On the second day of the George Washington Bridge lane closures last year, a Port Authority police officer stationed at a gridlocked intersection picked up the two-way radio in his patrol car. The closures were creating \u201chazardous conditions\u201d on Fort Lee\u2019s streets, he told fellow officers according to his own account, and the lanes needed to be reopened.<\/span> Seriously, the lower level cops have both gone to the union, and gone public about this.<\/p>\n This is like peeling an onion, but someone is clearly making onion rings out of this, hopefully the US Attorney.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Props to the The Bergen Record for their coverage of Bridgegate. Today, they revealed that senior staff at the Port Authority Police were aiding the bridge closures, and the rank and file cops are talking: On the second day of the George Washington Bridge lane closures last year, a Port Authority police officer stationed at …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[970,1041,978,1035],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-law-enforcement-misconduct","category-politics","category-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185693"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185693\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/span> \u201cShut up,\u201d a Port Authority police supervisor at the bridge allegedly replied, instructing the officer not to discuss the apparently secret operation over an open radio channel.<\/span>
<\/span> That exchange, as described by officer Steve Pisciotta and involving the highest-ranking officer at the bridge, Deputy Inspector Darcy Licorish, is included in a summary of the recollections of nearly a dozen rank-and-file police officers that was provided to lawmakers investigating the lane closures, according to documents obtained by The Record. <\/span>
<\/span> The accounts of 11 officers at the bridge during the week of the closures share common threads and provide vivid new details about how the operation was put into effect on a Monday morning nearly a year ago.<\/span>
<\/span> \u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>
<\/span> The instructions about the new lane configuration, many of them said, were delivered at roll call before the morning rush hour on the first day by Police Lt. Thomas \u201cChip\u201d Michaels<\/a>, who grew up with Governor Christie<\/a> in the town of Livingston. He told the officers not to touch the traffic cones choking the number of access lanes out of Fort Lee from three down to one, according to the officers. <\/span>
<\/span> Later that morning, officers said they saw Michaels driving David Wildstein<\/a> \u2014 the Port Authority executive who ordered the closures and also grew up with Christie \u2014 around Fort Lee\u2019s gridlocked streets. <\/span>
<\/span> \u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>
<\/span> Several immediately heard gossip in a police break room that the closures were part of a dispute between Christie and Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich<\/a>, who had declined to endorse the governor for re-election. The officers described the resulting traffic as \u201chorrible\u201d and \u201chorrific,\u201d and at least one urged a reversal of the operation, only to get warnings that his remarks over the radio were \u201cinappropriate,\u201d according to his attorney. It\u2019s the first indication that police charged with patrolling the bridge recognized and notified superiors of the chaos being caused by the lane closures. <\/span>
<\/span> The summary, written by the legislative panel\u2019s attorney Michael W. Knoo and based on an interview with the officers\u2019 attorney Dan Bibb, renews questions about the role of some Port Authority police officers in what appears to have been an exercise motivated partly by politics. <\/span>
<\/span> The Record also obtained separate summaries of informal interviews with the two police supervisors at the bridge at the time, Michaels and Licorish. Those interviews were conducted prior to the one given on behalf of the 11 rank-and-file officers and do not address some of the allegations regarding the instructions \u2013 and warnings \u2013 the officers say they received. <\/span>
<\/span> \u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>
<\/span> Some of the 11 rank-and-file officers at the bridge, however, described the supervisors as ordering them not to voice opposition to the lane closures as they were happening.<\/span>
<\/span> Perhaps the most explosive anecdote was provided on behalf of Pisciotta, a 12-year officer who is typically one of the first to arrive at the bridge before the morning rush hour, according to the summary. Pisciotta\u2019s attorney said his client, who had worked at the bridge for over five years, recognized early on that the closures were causing traffic safety problems and aired his concern over the radio on the second day, according to the summary. <\/span>
<\/span> \u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>
<\/span> Licorish \u201creplied to Pisciotta by radio, telling him to \u2018shut up\u2019 and that there could be no further discussion of the lane closures over the air,\u201d according to Pisciotta\u2019s attorney. <\/span>
<\/span> Michaels and a police sergeant then \u201cvisited him in person at his post to tell him that his radio communication had been inappropriate,\u201d the attorney said. <\/span>
<\/span> A second officer, Angela Tait, said she witnessed both exchanges, according to the summary. <\/span>
<\/span> State Sen. Loretta Weinberg, of Teaneck, who is co-chairwoman of the legislative panel, said the summaries indicate that \u201claw enforcement was in on this whole thing.\u201d<\/span>
<\/span> \u201cIt was bad enough that it was the Port Authority and people close to the governor, but now you\u2019ve got the people who are responsible for keeping us safe,\u201d she said. \u201cAny time you have law enforcement involved in a political operation, that\u2019s very troubling.\u201d<\/span>
<\/span> Bibb, who is representing the 11 officers, also told the lawmakers\u2019 attorney that many of the officers have already been interviewed by federal investigators, who are conducting a criminal probe. Bibb provided the legislative panel a summary of what the officers stationed at the bridge would say if subpoenaed to appear before the committee and testify under oath, according to the memo, dated Aug. 27.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n