It sounds absurd, I know, but that’s the net result of police actions in Winfield Park, New Jersey, earlier this month.

Frank Roder thought he was doing a good thing when he took his son down to the Rahway River to feed the ducks.  No sooner had Frank and his son arrived at the parking lot when his young son jumped out of the jeep and ran directly for the edge of the riverbank and the 35 foot drop into the river below.

The horrified father jumped out of his vehicle as fast as he could and ran after his son.  Thankfully he managed to catch the boy just mere feet before he ran off the riverbank.

As he held his son close to his chest, young Aidan said to his dad:

“Um, Daddy…”

The two watched as Frank Roder’s jeep rolled down the embankment and into the muddy waters of the Rahway River.

Frank, in his rush to save his son’s life, had not put on the Jeep’s parking brake.

It’s an honest mistake and given the gravity of the situation one that any reasonable human being would forgive.

Unfortunately the Union County Police Department doesn’t seem to have any reasonable human beings serving as police officers…

Instead of making sure both father and son were okay one degenerate police officer handed Frank Roder two tickets; one for failing to produce his insurance card (somewhere inside the waterlogged cab of the vehicle) and the other for failing to use his emergency brake.

That wasn’t the end of the insensitivity of the Union County police officer, however.  It gets worse.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Roder said. “He said, ‘If you would have taken the five seconds to apply the brake, this never would have happened!’

“I say, ‘Really? And if I did and my boy stepped over the edge and fell instead of the Jeep, then where would I be?’ He says, ‘Jail, for child endangerment.'”

Clearly this yahoo of a cop has taken the Bureaucrat’s Rule #1 to heart and made it his own.

The Rules are More Important Than People

When police don’t possess the most basic sense of humanity or human dignity it’s no wonder horror stories like this become commonplace.  That lack of decency appears to go all the way to the top of the Union County Police Department, too.

Union County Police Chief Daniel Vaniska told reporters,

“I can’t comment on the discretionary practices of an officer, but certainly, the fellow will have an opportunity to tell his story in court.”

Really?

Our police men and women should be connected to their humanity, not shut off from it.