By: Matthew Armstrong
Two patrol officers were promoted to the position of sergeant on Tuesday.
Hugh McNeill and Tom Glapion were sworn as sergeants Tuesday by the Township Council meeting. They fill the vacancies left by Sgt. George Olynyk and Sgt. Mark Hiestand. Both retired in February.
Sgt. Glapion has 18 years of experience and Sgt. McNeil has 20 years experience. Each will have a salary of $73,282.
According to Police Chief Michael Paquette, sergeants will not be eligible to serve in district schools as school resource officers.
Now that the promotions process is complete, the department will now work on appointing officers to district schools as school resource officers.
Last year was the first year of the School Resource Officer program. The program was intended to create a bond between students and police in the wake of school shootings and other troubling events across the nation in the past few years.
However, tensions rose between students and some faculty and the Police Department following a physical altercation between the school resource officer and three students. The students were charged with aggravated assault and resisting arrest.
The resource officer, Patrol Officer Scott Williams, was put on administrative leave for an unrelated incident.
Students protested the handling of the incident in the high school and the existence of a police presence in the school with a number of classroom walkouts and petitions asking for an end to the SRO program.
But, high school students grew more receptive to the program when then-Officer Glapion took over the position. Students and faculty said there was a strong bond with Officer Glapion and the antagonism for the SRO program quickly faded.
However, the promotion of Officer Glapion to sergeant means that he will not be eligible to serve as the schools resource officer at the high school because sergeants do not serve as resource officers, said Chief Paquette.
Chief Paquette said a decision will be made within the next two weeks on which officers will attend which school. Appointments to the SRO program are made by Chief Paquette.
As school broke for the summer, Superintendent Sam Stewart said he hoped Sgt. Glapion would return in the fall. Now that Sgt. Glapion is unavailable, the high school will have to adapt to another new face in the SRO program.
In addition to the promotions, a new officer was sworn into the township Police Department on Tuesday.
Joseph R. Rausch, a 25-year-old Princeton resident who was a self-employed landscaper, is the department’s newest officer.
