After Crash, Police Hiring Is Questioned

After Crash, Police Hiring Is Questioned : ServeNow.com: "Legal papers served on officials in Jersey City

Jersey City was in need of police officers in December 2005, and the news had filtered down to an officer in Middletown Township, N.J., who was looking for a fresh start.

The officer, Kevin Freibott, approached his chief in Middletown with a transfer form, a gesture that was met with little surprise. Officer Freibott was fired from the department there in 2001 after a car accident outside a bar and grill in Atlantic Highlands in which he was driving with an expired license. Although he was reinstated after petitioning the state, he received a six-month suspension.

“He took a big, whopping suspension,” said his former chief, Robert Oches. “I bet in his mind he felt his career dead-ended here.”

That was not the only blot on Officer Freibott’s record. In an interview this week, a former police chief in Jersey City said that investigators were aware of the spotty record of Officer Freibott — who now faces charges of aggravated manslaughter, assault by auto and drunken driving from a crash last month on the Pulaski Skyway — but saw no reason not to hire him.