BRICK TOWNSHIP – There have been 240 officers in the history of the Brick Township police department. Ronald J. Dougard was Badge No. 2.
Dougard was a young police officer with the now-defunct state Motor Vehicle Highway Patrol when his lieutenant called him in one day back in 1972 to tell him about a job opening at a new police department in a town called Brick.
“He said, ‘Brick Township is starting a new police force that you’d do well in,’ ” Dougard recalled. “I took a ride out. The rest is history.”
Dougard, 62, took another ride in November. He went to Trenton with Toms River Police Chief and longtime friend Michael G. Mastronardy to fill out his pension papers for retirement. He had originally planned to retire in 2009.
“It was a tough decision,” he said in a recent interview in his old office at police headquarters. “It was time. I feel it was just my time to retire.”
The clerk helping him out asked him if he realized he had 40 years in the state pension system, Dougard said.
“I was working for nothing,” he laughed.
Dougard was sworn in on Aug. 11, 1972. Brick was a little different back then. It was a primarily rural town of a little more than 25,000 residents.
“It didn’t look anything like it does now, that’s for sure,” he said. “All along Route 70 there was one street light.”
Police back then spent a lot of time dealing with juveniles. But if there is one constant that has remained a problem over the past 35 years, it’s traffic, the former chief said.
“Back then, it was problems with kids,” he said. “We’ve always had a serious accident problem. One year there were 16 fatal traffic accidents. That was the year the police department started the traffic safety bureau.
“Speed was always a factor,” he said. “Now it’s overly congested. Speed isn’t the factor it used to be.”
The township also had its share of domestic violence calls back then, as it does now, Dougard said.
But there were no domestic violence laws in place to help when he started as an officer, he said.
“Our job was to try and persuade one of the parties to leave the house for the night,” he said.
What did he like best about being a cop?
“The job changes from one minute to the next,” Dougard said.
He rose steadily through the department’s ranks. He made sergeant in April 1974. By June 1980, he was a lieutenant. When the chief ‘s position became available in 1990, Dougard was determined to win the top spot. The position was opened up both to captains and lieutenants and a Civil Service test was called.
Dougard studied “eight hours a day, seven days a week, for six months.” He came in first.
He gradually began to build on the department’s services. The juvenile bureau, the marine unit and the DARE program all began during Dougard’s tenure. He credits his officers with the department’s success, including the distinction of winning the “Safest City in America” title from Kansas-based Morgan Quitno Press in 2006. Brick had been in the top five on the list for the previous eight years.
“We did it together, and I mean together,” Dougard said. “We built the finest department around.”
The police department had lacked a stable leadership when Dougard took over in 1990, Capt. Douglas J. Kinney said.
“We are where we are now because of the chief and what he did,” Kinney said. “He let us grow in our positions. He settled things down. He had a plan.”
Dougard was always fair in his dealings with his officers, said Capt. John E. Rein Jr.
“He gave me many opportunities to show what I could do and to have confidence in what I could do,” Rein said. “He was as fair as he could possibly be. It obviously paid off.”
Mastronardy has known Dougard for more than 20 years. The two were lieutenants on the midnight shift in Toms River and Brick, respectively.
“We’d have coffee and go over trends, how to get our guys working together, sharing information,” Mastronardy said. “He was always looking out for the members of the department and what was best for Brick Township. He was always looking out for his officers.”
The two often traveled together to different police seminars.
“Ronnie would take the conference and training seriously and bring it back to improve his department,” Mastronardy said. “It was good to have him as a peer as we sat through many of those different courses.”
Dougard was also a valued colleague, Mastronardy said.
“He was always someone I could go to and trust,” he said. “As a chief, you need that. We certainly came up together. We were friendly as midnight lieutenants. It was a natural transition when we both became chiefs. I think he’s been a good chief for Brick Township. He built his department to what it is. He created an environment for our officers to work together. I’m sure that will continue with Chief Berquist.”
Dougard knew there were problems with former longtime Mayor Joseph C. Scarpelli when the FBI recruited one of his lieutenants, now-Capt. James Riccio, to assist in the investigation.
The chief had to sign an agreement stipulating that he would not ask Riccio any details of the investigation.
“Once that happened, I knew something was up,” he said. “The mayor had some issues here and we just left it at that,” he said.
He thinks his replacement, Chief Nils R. Berquist, will do a good job. The township administration decided not to open up the field of prospects to include lieutenants. That left Berquist and Capt. Douglas J. Kinney as the only eligible candidates for chief.
“That’s a tough choice,” he said. “They are both outstanding individuals.”
But he doesn’t think calling for a Civil Service test would have helped the selection process. It takes time to schedule the test and create a list, he said.
“That’s a big vacuum,” he said. “They only test at certain times of the year. We probably wouldn’t have had a list until the fall.”
Although Ronald Dougard is retired, there will still be a Dougard on the police department roster. His son, Ronald Jr., is a Brick police lieutenant.
“When he was little, I would stop home for lunch and take him around in the police car,” Dougard said. “He liked that.”
His retirement is a transition, after decades as a police officer, he said.
“It didn’t sink in yet,” Dougard said. “I enjoyed my job. I loved it. I miss everybody. I miss the people.”
He and his wife, Andrea, are looking forward to a seven-day cruise to Alaska this summer.
“All in all, it was a great career,” he said. “If I had to do it all over again, I would do exactly what I did.”