"Joe,
Let me begin by that I was born and raised on the Eastern Shore, I moved away 25 years ago when I married my husband. He served 25 years in the US Navy. But I come home frequently to visit both of our families.
I have been reading your blog for about 8 months now and have read with interest your view of the Salisbury Police Department. I thought you were a little too critical of them, I have changed my mind after this weekend.
Last Friday night my youngest daughter (20) drove to Salisbury for a family wedding, at 12:30 am she called me at my mother-in-laws house. She had a tire blow out on top of the Route 13 over pass bridge. She was driving her husband 4-wheel drive truck. When I got there you could not see her vehicle until you were near the top of the bridge. I pulled up behind her and put my 4-way flashers on. My daughter had never been broken down on the side of the road and was scared to death. I was trying to get her to drive the truck to the Tastee Freeze parking lot at the bottom of the bridge when a SPD officer came along, I thought finally help. Boy was I wrong. He pulled up in front of my daughters truck and stopped her as she was driving very slowly down the hill, I got out of my truck and asked the officer who I could call for help. Yes I know how to change a tire but was afraid that I would not be strong enough to jack the truck up. He said he could give me their dispatch number, which he did. Then he stated he had another call and left. He left us on the hill again. Before I could call the number, my husband called my cell phone to see if we had gotten anyone to help us yet and I lost the number to dispatch.
We finally got to the parking lot. No thanks to the SPD!! We also witnessed a drug deal go down right in the parking lot with us.
The good part of the night was to young Mexican males stopped to us and helped change the tire. The could not speak English very well but we were able to communicate with them well enough to get the tire changed.
Remember, I have not lived in this area for 25 years and both vehicles had out of state plates (one Virginia, one with North Carolina plates). If the policeman that had stopped to us would have called a tow truck for us or even had another officer to come help us the night would not have been so scary.
I will never doubt your criticism of the SPD again. It really is as bad as you post on your blog.
Thanks
Annette Dukes
Virginia Beach"
DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
20 comments:
You should just be glad that you and your daughter made it out alive! Many don't, here in the 'bury.
What more did you expect from him honestly? To change the tire for you? If he had a call to take care of a crime related issue then oh well. You made it down the hill, he gave you a number. The polics aren't mechanics.
Anon 8:37am must be one of those dead beat city cops. Notice the poor grammar and spelling. The city is scraping the bottom of the barrel these days. Who would want to work for the SPD when you can work for a premier agency like the Wicomico County Sheriff's Office or the Maryland State Police?
It's not his fault the dept is under staffed, it's the mayor and city council's. Of 88 officers, guess how many are actually on duty during a night shift? 8. Seriously.
Anon 8:37am - And just how hard would it have been for the idiot cop to give the two ladies a tow truck company phone number? Geez!
It seems to me the appropriate thing for the SPD officer to have done would be to stop behind the disabled vehicle and activate his emergency lights as a warning to approaching motorist.
Then he should have called dispatch made them aware of the potentially dangerious situation on the bridge and requested they dispatch a second unit to the call he was responding to.
One can only imagine what might have happended if a motorist had topped that bridge and rear-ended the truck.
Over the years their have been more than a few fatalities on the Overhead Bridge. This situation could have been serious and the SPD Officer should have realized that.
I'm not taking any sides here.
The officer did stop to help, but received another call. With the info we have about how many officers are on duty, and without knowing what the other call was for, I can understand that he might need to leave in a hurry. This was probably a lower priority than his other call, and he did leave a number. It wasn't his fault that it was lost.
I've seen many officers ride right by motorists broken down, so I think that just getting him to stop was a step in the right direction.
It seems to me, the real fault lies with the driver not having the correct knowledfge of what to do in a situation like this. I'm not a fan of the leadership at SPD, but this doesn't have anything to do with this officer.
Anon 8:37---Police can not refer people to any certain towing companies. If the officer had made a call for a tow truck to respond, the minimum-mandatory fee would have been at least 150 dollars, as set by the City of Salisbury.
I am sure she would not have wanted to pay that fee, so he did the right thing by giving her the dispatch number.
To Mardela if the call he was responding to was not a life or death call then he should have stayed it is called serving and protecting. The motorist stated it was 12:30 a.m. The risk of accident by drunk driver triples after midnight. I think if it were your wife and daughter you would be pissed. SPD is getting everyone elses left overs. Get rid of Webster and Tilghman. I thank God i live in the county. I would be willing to bet when the officer saw he had no criminal activity he left or maybe he is the SPD unit that sleeps all night at the Athletic Complex. SPD needs a mojor overhaul. The shitty attitude has rolled down hill at the big house on rt.50. Send Webster packing and get rid of the fourth tier cops you have hired to fill boots. Plain and simple he came upon a call for srvice and did not handle it well at all porpbaly J.D.
Roger,
Where did I say he gave her a tow truck number? He did the right thing by giving her the dispatch number, as I previously said. I also agree with anon 10:15 that if possible, another officer could have made it to the scene to make sure there were no safety issues with the truck stuck on the bridge. With exception to the wheel falling off, she could have easily slowly driven her way to safety.
I guess you learned you are not number 1,
the police have more important calls than flat tires.
I guess you learned also that not all young mexicans are bad.
i guess that you also learned that the good ole boys like the ones on this blog wont help you either.
May be you could do a little more maintanace on the truck so your girl wont break down.
and for god sakes get a little exercise ,maybe lift some weights so you can jack up the truck.
As you republicans are saying -TAKE A LITTLE RESPONSIBILITY -DONT RELY ON THE POLICE TO FIX YOUR FLAT TIRE......
Spoken like a treu patrolman from SPD. Get real handle your business. Maybe it will bu your mother out there lets just hope it is in the county where MSP and WCSO take care of things. The only way to prevent a flet tire would be for it to be as hard as your head lol. Go back to the Athletic complx and sleep your shift away
Sounds like an old joke....
How do you blind a Salisbury City cop?.....Do a drug deal in plain sight!
No hate mail please,I say this from personal experience living in that neighborhood.But they damn sure see me with no seatbelt.Tastee Freez is right around the corner from where I used to live and that whole area is one huge open-air drugstore.
Yeah i had just gotten ice cream there one day with my parents and we saw some sort of transaction right behind tastee freez, but anyhow i had a tire blow out on me on Rt. 50 right before the valero in pittsville and it is scary changing a tire with cars whizzing by at 65-70 mph. Yes a state trooper stopped, asked my name, ran my tags and then proceeded to keep running radar. Big help he was. I guess helping me change a tire or putting his flashers on until i was done doesnt really do much for his salary. Gotta write them tickets huh.....
Honestly, what an ignorant bunch of morons! Everyone thinks they can do the job but no one wants to. People also seem to think because they have seen the words "serve and protect" on hollywood movies that the police officers job is to bow down and kiss their a$$ and take care of their every need! You want service, go to Denny's! SPD officers are overworked and run from call to call, often working 12 hours without so much as a 5 minute lunch break (which many of you seem to think they are not entitled to either). I would be willing to bet that if these officers followed you around for a day where you work, they could easily point out where you are not doing your job and how it could be done better. 8 officers working at one time is a lot for the city, most of the time they are working with 5 or 6 for the entire city. It's no different than what the fire departments, EMS and hospitals do, tending to peoples needs in order of severity. I have no use for this woman who wants to blame an entire department because they did not kiss her a$$ when she had a flat tire. Is she so retarded that she could not call 911 on her phone? The officer gave her the telephone number to dispatch thinking that she had enough brain cells to dial it and not lose it in 30 seconds. It's people like this that cause the good officers to leave because they are overworked and nothing they do is ever good enough, so they go to other agencies that pay more with less work and fewer idiots on the bandwagon!
Anon 9:44 AM
or how about staying behind them with flashing lights on to make sure the citizens/visitors were safe. What happened to the old motto "to protect and serve?"
I had an incident recently where my vehicle cut off on the Vienna Bridge and I was fortunate enough to coast off the bridge to the Wicomico side. It was around 11:00 pm and two MSP Troopers and one WCSO deputy went flying by towards Salisbury. My guess is that they were flying by in excess of 80 mph, but the emergency they were responding to was to get home as soon as possible. There isn't much traffic on Rt. 50 at 11:00 pm so it was obvious there was a motorist in distress. When the tow truck operator got there he asked if any of those cops stopped for me. NOPE!
Premier agencies like wcso and msp? lol
"What more did you expect from him honestly? To change the tire for you? If he had a call to take care of a crime related issue then oh well. You made it down the hill, he gave you a number. The polics aren't mechanics.
8:37 AM"
WOW! I hope to god you're not a current officer. I just retired and I would have NEVER left someone stranded like that. If I had another call to respond to I would have at least made sure that they were safely out of the roadway and made sure help was on the way.
It's silliness like this where adults turn into babies and expect the police to wipe their bottoms that makes me weep for how asinine people have become.
Here you have two grown adult females helpless and flailing around because they don't know what to do when you get a flat tire. The older woman was apprised well ahead of time by her panicky daughter what the scenario was (ie flat tire) and arrives on the scene with no tow numbers and her thumb planted firmly in her mouth. A policeman is not AAA or 411 or your personal bodyguard. The sense of entitlement that older white women have is beyond imagining.
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