Officers from a number of departments deploy to Louisiana
By: Emily Craighead
Princeton Borough and West Windsor Township police have experience answering 911 emergency phone calls they’re just not used to answering them in a hurricane zone a month after the calls were placed.
"So many (calls) came in on the day of the storm and right after the storm, they weren’t able to get to them all," said Lt. Keith Hillman of the West Windsor Police Department in a phone interview from New Orleans on Wednesday. He is in Louisiana with a team of New Jersey police officers on a 16-day assignment to help local police following Hurricane Katrina, which has been described as the largest natural disaster the United States has ever faced.
In many cases, a phone call to the source of the 911 call confirms that everyone is safe and sound. But in at least two cases, Lt. Hillman and Lt. David Mansue, also of the West Windsor Police Department, drove to the address only to find the bodies of hurricane victims.
The New Jersey Law Enforcement Task Force team, comprising about 200 police officers, left for New Orleans on Sept. 27. The team includes West Windsor police officers Lt. Hillman, Lt. Mansue, Detective Donald Edwards, and Officer Gregory Glassen, and Princeton Borough police officers John Furyk and William Perez, who volunteered to go to Louisiana.
They are staying at "Camp New Jersey," housed in the Bonnabel High School gymnasium in Kenner, La., a suburb 15 miles northwest of New Orleans.
The Princeton and West Windsor officers drove to Louisiana in a police motorcade with two Hamilton Township officers and officers from Union County and the New Jersey State Police.
The Mercer County Office of Emergency Management coordinated the deployment of Mercer County officers. The officers are under the control and command of the New Jersey State Police Emergency Management Unit.
All costs, including salaries, will be covered by the Office of Emergency Management.
"They are supplementing law enforcement and public safety," West Windsor Police Chief Joseph M. Pica Jr. said of the task force’s mission on the Gulf Coast.
New Jersey police officers have been teaming up with police and firefighters from New York City, Chicago and other parts of the country.
Looting in the city continues, and increasing police visibility is a priority as residents are slowly being allowed to return to their homes in New Orleans, Lt. Hillman said.
"Each day we’ve been in (New Orleans) there’s been more people," he said.
At night, with electricity still not back in many parts of New Orleans and curfews to enforce, a strong police presence is even more important.
On their first day in New Orleans, the West Windsor officers provided security for a decontamination unit working in St. Bernard Parish.
Lt. Hillman said none of the television reports prepared him for the devastation he encountered in New Orleans.
"It isn’t like saying West Windsor was destroyed," he said. "It’s like saying all of Mercer County was wiped out."
He described gruesome scenes of a dead horse lying by the side of the road and a dead dog rotting at the top of a tree where floodwaters dropped its body. Refrigerators, duct-taped shut to keep in the stench of rotting food, lie in front of houses on nearly every block. Debris and lingering floodwaters continue to block some roads.
"It’s coming to the point now where you see a boat on a road or on top of a house and it’s second nature," Lt. Hillman said.
In spite of it all, Lt. Hillman said he has encountered only kindness from grateful New Orleans residents.
The Princeton Borough and West Windsor officers are expected to return to New Jersey on Tuesday.