22 Comments

1. POSTED BY MBH  |  August 25, 2009 @ 11:03 am

   I am sorry to read about William Schwindt Jr.’s passing.
   I am writing to state that I am completely appalled and offended by the actions of a Bloomfield police officer during this morning’s funeral procession.
   I left a doctor’s appointment this morning and was at the intersection of Belleville Ave and Broad St. Unaware of the street closings, I signaled right and was directed by a police officer to go right. When I approached the Nevada Diner (on my right) I noticed that all the streets were closed and police motorcycles were heading towards me. Unable to move out of the way (all the streets were closed) I pulled over, unsure as to how to safely get out of the way.
   As I pulled over, a police SUV swerved out around the motorcycles and an officer jumped out screaming at me! What did I think I was doing? I must turn around… Get out of the way I am in the middle of a funeral procession. I apologized numerous times as I tried to maneuver my car in the middle of Broad Street to turn around and get out of the way.
   The officer did not stop yelling and screaming as I was trying to do a 3-point turn in the middle of Broad Street as quickly as possible. I cannot believe how I was treated! This officer had absolutely no right to verbally assault me in public. I followed the directive of the first officer that it was safe to turn right on to Broad Street. Obviously, if I had known of the day’s events I would have taken a different route.
   I am sorry that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Mistakes happen.
   If this is someone who is supposed to be looking out for our community, I’m worried. Where is his respect and duty to help protect the citizens of Bloomfield?
   Perhaps in the future, the Bloomfield Police should coordinate the closings of roads.
   NOTE: Do not direct traffic head-on into a funeral procession!
   This law abiding citizen did not deserve to be verbally assaulted!
   Thanks for listening…
   *Resident of Bloomfield, Elementary School Teacher and Mother of a 1 Year Old
2. POSTED BY Nellie  |  August 25, 2009 @ 11:06 am

   melanib, I hope you will write a similar letter to Bloomfield Life. It seems that the problem started with the officer who allowed you to make a right-hand turn. The second officer had no right to yell and scream at you.
3. POSTED BY MBH  |  August 25, 2009 @ 11:09 am

   Thanks Nellie. I appreciate your feedback. Writing to Bloomfield Life seems like a good idea!
4. POSTED BY Anne Prince  |  August 25, 2009 @ 11:34 am

   Melanie,
   Before you write to the papers, I would advise you to write directly to Police Chief Mark Leonard and copy your councilperson as well.
   Chief Leonard’s email is policechief@bloomfieldtwpnj.com
   If you are unsure of who your council person is let me know what ward you live in and I can tell you who it is.
   I am sure that emotions were extremely high at the moment, but that still does not excuse the actions of the second officer.
5. POSTED BY herbeverschmel  |  August 25, 2009 @ 11:54 am

   Before you write to anyone you should probably realize that they lost a “brother” who was taken well before his time. I would imagine they are very emotional these days. Writing a letter to the paper might be used against you as people will twist it and make you look selfish because on such a sad day, it makes it about you and your inconvienence. I realize you have a right to be annoyed but I would suggest you give them a pass on this one all things considered.
6. POSTED BY Hobbs  |  August 25, 2009 @ 12:01 pm

   My thoughts and prayers are with Sgt. Schwindt, his family, and BPD. God Bless.
7. POSTED BY Blu  |  August 25, 2009 @ 12:10 pm

   So Herb, you think it’s ok for a professional to take his very bad day out on those he’s sworn to protect? Sorry, but I think his Chef should know and his Chef should decide whether the officer should get a pass for his behavior. Melanib doesn’t need to swear out a complaint, but a heads up to the Chef sounds like a way to bring to his attention an officer that might need a ‘time out’ to get his emotions under control.
8. POSTED BY Nellie  |  August 25, 2009 @ 12:18 pm

   It’s always good to take your complaints to a Chef. Pastry chefs, especially, are good listeners.
9. POSTED BY herbeverschmel  |  August 25, 2009 @ 12:54 pm

   Hey Blu,
   Your not talking about a guy who might have got into a fender bender on his way to work and was cranky, your talking about a person that was burying a co-worker that wasn’t retired or in his 80′s. He was basically a kid , maybe it was a family friend or a kid from the ‘hood. I have no idea but if you can’t give these men a pass on a day this tragic then you have no heart.
   It’s all about me !! I have a baby, wah wah and that mean man yelled at me. Stop. In Baristville where the groovesters are so supposed to be so compassionate. I guess the compassion some of you have is for crooks, terrorist or Mumia Abu Jamal. Whining about the mean police gives you something to talk about while sipping your lattes at Starbucks. God forbid you give the Officer a pass on the day of his 35 yr old co-workers funeral. Go ahead , write a letter or give the Chief a call i’m sure they’ll be glad to hear from you….and wait till you see the letters to editor in favor of the mean police officer that twist the situation and make Mel look like a self centered whiner. I was simply trying to have Mel avoid that. If it happened on any other day I would say Mel has a point but today? Even the groovester libs in Montclair that hate the police should know the situation.
10. POSTED BY ScubaNJ  |  August 25, 2009 @ 1:11 pm

    Herb, I’m with you. A pass is in order today. In addition, I would bet that Mel is blowing the whole thing out of proportion (“verbally assault me in public”). Lastly, I think it was in poor taste for her to make that complaint the very first post on this article.
    PS- If this is someone who is supposed to be teaching in our community, I’m worried.
11. POSTED BY Nellie  |  August 25, 2009 @ 1:15 pm

    herb, I understand what you’re saying but I don’t think such behavior would be tolerated in other professional settings. I’ve seen people come to work in my office after suffering heartbreaking tragedies, but that still wouldn’t make verbally assaulting a co-worker acceptable behavior. The police officer, who was on the job, should be held to the same professional standards.
    melanib has a right to complain, through whatever venue she chooses. If the police chief gives the officer a pass, that is his call.
12. POSTED BY KatebirdRex  |  August 25, 2009 @ 1:16 pm

    Sending my sympathies to Sgt. Schwindt’s family, friends, and colleagues–this is a sad ending to a long fight with cancer.
13. POSTED BY Blu  |  August 25, 2009 @ 1:27 pm

    Hey Herb, Ask yourself whether Sgt. Schwindt would be proud of the officer for yelling at someone on a public street and whether he’d have given the guy a pass. If he was a good, professional cop, he wouldn’t have been proud of the action taken in his name.
14. POSTED BY ThePrimrosePlath  |  August 25, 2009 @ 1:47 pm

    Mel, how very crass of you to turn a post honoring one of Bloomfield’s finest into a sympathy party for yourself. It must have been a very tough morning for you! I send you my condolences.
    I especially like where you pointed out that “Mistakes happen”, yet are so quick to call the actions of others inexcusable. I am in no way saying the police were mistaken, I wasn’t there and my better judgement tells me to take your story with a grain of salt. Nobody is infallible, and perhaps you should try extending the same forgiveness you seek.
    Plus,I am sure, my dear, that in your career as an educator you have said or done something that you regretted later. You may be a professional, but you are still human.
    “Mistakes happen”…
    On a final note, pointing out that you are a mother and an elementary school teacher was a nice touch. In my experience, anyone with a functional female reproductive system can produce a baby. I have also found that anyone, no matter how obtuse, can become an elementary school teacher. Not to say that this is a blanket statement, there are plenty of wonderful and truly inspiring elementary teachers out there. Your audacious and tactless pity party suggests the former.
15. POSTED BY MellonBrush  |  August 25, 2009 @ 3:28 pm

    Officer Schwindt dedicated himself to helping others and bettering his community. His passing was untimely and although I never met him, I mourn his passing.
    Whenever a young person passes away I am humbled and reminded of just how precious life is.
16. POSTED BY dh73  |  August 25, 2009 @ 9:11 pm

    You have to be kidding how did the focus get on this women in her car?? I am related to Bill and I think the Bloomfield Police Department and the other area police departments did a great job today to honor a young sergeant. Please don’t waste your energy on this women but instead pray for his wife and 4 year old daughter he leaves behind.
17. POSTED BY JV70  |  August 25, 2009 @ 9:29 pm

    Okay I too am related to Bill.I was there at todays service.You say that you were directed to turn into Broad St and you didn’t know it was closed but there was clearly a barricade there.Also there were 2 fire trucks with a huge flag drapped across Broad St.Maybe the officer thought you were a family member and were trying to get to the funeral home as we were allowed through the barricade.Also if you were near Nevada Diner could you not have turned in there?Give these remarkable men a break.They did an unbelievable job while watching one of their own being put to rest.I watched these men as they had to stand there in the heat in full uniform tears streaming down their faces while they performed their duties.
18. POSTED BY ffc  |  August 25, 2009 @ 11:14 pm

    I would like to comment on the posting written above. Today was an extremely difficult day for the family. I hope you never have to endure what they went through today. Even if you think you have a legitimate complaint(which you don’t) this is not the forum for it. To write such disrespectful comments on a tribute page is rude, thoughtless, disgraceful and ignorant. This man selflessly put his life on the line daily to protect you and the citizens of Bloomfield. Have some respect for him and his family during this time! The officers were beyond fantastic today. They did everything in their power to honor a fallen brother. Those giant orange barricades were there for a reason. If you choose to go around them then you deserved to be reprimanded. All roads were closed very early in the morning. I am sure Sgt. Schwindt would have been happy with the officer’s response to your actions due to the fact that by going around the barricade you could have caused a head on collision that could have endangered the lives of many people involved in the procession. It is alarming that a teacher cannot follow basic traffic patterns. We are so sorry that a few moments of your day were inconvienced when the lives of another family were being turned upside down. We are all for freedom of speech but tact and dignity go a long way. Please put yourself in the family’s shoes before commenting on a public forum. They lost a loved one today.
19. POSTED BY Pork Roll  |  August 26, 2009 @ 12:19 am

    To write such disrespectful comments on a tribute page is rude, thoughtless, disgraceful and ignorant.
    That is a bit of an over-reaction, no? melanib opened her comments by expressing her condolences for Sgt Schwindt. The remainder of her post concerned her interaction with one particular police officer after being mistakenly directed into the closed-off area by another. What exact was “rude, thoughtless, disgraceful, and ignorant?”
    The responses to melanib’s comments have taking on a disturbing tone of “how dare you criticize the police” (which she was not, just the behavior of one individual), and with respect to ThePrimosePath’s comment, if anything has injected crassness into this thread, it’s the way several posters above are piling onto melanib with condescending personal attacks.
    If this were indeed a “tribute page” to Sgt Schwindt then melanib’s comments would be out of place. But this is not a “tribute page”, it’s a one news item among many on a hyper-local blog. It seems that it’s not enough for the posters above to simply declare offer their own expressions of mourning and politely note how they think melanib’s concerns may have been out of place here, but they instead feel it is necessary to ridicule her on a personal level. I would suggest that is not the best way to honor Sgt Schwindt’s memory.
20. POSTED BY ffc  |  August 26, 2009 @ 2:24 am

    Pork Roll I think you’re missing the point. This is not the appropriate place to discuss melanib’s issue. If she feels that she was treated inappropriately then she should take it up elsewhere, not on a site about an officer laid to rest today. Have some class. Respect the family.This should be the place for well wishes and condolences. Yes, rude thoughtless,disgraceful and disrespectful!
21. POSTED BY ScubaNJ  |  August 26, 2009 @ 8:15 am

    “…melanib opened her comments by expressing her condolences for Sgt Schwindt.”
    Go and re-read what she wrote. That “expression” was lame in contrast to the detail she gave about her “appalling” experience.
    It’s only my opinion but her post on this topic, along with all those that defend her, show a lack of compassion. I applaud all the posters that have criticized her for this.
    (OK, now go ahead and give me the thumbs down. It will give me a good indication the type of people that post on this site.)
22. POSTED BY herbeverschmel  |  August 26, 2009 @ 8:49 am

    I just can’t believe that someone who is an educator and is supposed to be teaching compassion and understanding to our youth is so self absorbed that she comes on a public forum and bashes the police at 11:03 a.m probably while the service is still going on. She just couldn’t wait to get home and get on the computer and bash the police and make it all about her inconvienence . God help the youth of today if this is who is educating them.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.