Shortly before I became the Village Attorney of Nassau, the Board of Trustees appointed Martin Harrington as its police chief. “Marty” had been a policeman in the City of Albany at one time, but I don’t think that he had risen in rank above patrolman in that employment. Marty was fairly good-natured, but a bit dumpy in appearance. His uniform was typical city policeman regulation blue, perhaps a carryover from his earlier job. It was a trifle too small and accentuated his growing belly. Marty did not wear fancy braids on his uniform or scrambled eggs on his cap, but he did wear 3 or 4 military general’s stars on his epaulets to reflect his status.
The Village fathers wanted their policeman to slow speeders, help the elementary school children cross Route 20, and be available to handle the occasional domestic dispute. Instead, they usually wound up hiring someone who wanted to tackle criminal investigations that would even stump Interpol. That was not the case with Marty. He was pretty low key. He wrote a few tickets, helped the kids cross the street, directed Sunday morning traffic when the churches let out, and generally did whatever the Village Trustees thought he should do. He was a pretty good fit for the Village. While nobody had a bad word for him, he didn’t command a great deal of respect, probably because of his somewhat disheveled appearance. Once Marty came to a meeting of the Village Trustees to complain that an out-of-town driver who he had ticketed had ripped it up and mailed to him, addressed only to “Marty, the Fat Fuzz, Nassau, New York”. He seemed most upset that the Post Office had matter-of-factly delivered it to him. The Village Trustees nodded their sympathy, but none shared his indignation.
Marty became friendly with Wilbur, a recent retiree from New York City who had worked as a lineman for Consolidated Edison. Wilbur had been a volunteer auxiliary policeman in New York, which meant that he rode around in a police car at night with a patrolman, but had no police officer status. The auxiliary policeman served a useful purpose, keeping the police officer company, providing “an extra pair of eyes”, and being ready to radio for help in an emergency. Although the village didn’t have a formal auxiliary police program, Wilbur started riding with Marty to pass the time. The Village Trustees were aware of this, but saw no harm, particularly since there was no expense. Wilbur even came up with a makeshift uniform, but he looked more like an aging security guard than a policeman.
During the 1960s the Capital District cities of Albany, Troy, and Schenectady experienced some racial strife. A group of young black men in Albany, leaders of that city’s protest movement, smashed some store windows during a demonstration one night, and several of them were arrested, but there was no real personal violence. That event was replicated in Troy and Schenectady and was a major source of news for a while. During the height of this tension, Marty and Wilbur came to the Village Trustees, and Marty told them that he had to prepare the Nassau Police Department for this new law enforcement crisis. He had a wish list of new gear, including a pump shotgun, 2 riot helmets, 2 bulletproof vests, and some tear gas canisters. As their counsel, I unsuccessfully argued against Marty’s request, pointing out that I had only known of two young black men in the Village. One, “Sunshine” Fairbanks had gone to elementary school with me but had long since moved away, and Harold Hallenback, a young man two grades behind me, whose family had lived just outside of the Village for a couple of generations. While the Trustees nodded their heads in agreement that Harold was unlikely to pose a threat, they felt that they owed an obligation to Marty to equip him with the equipment he said that he needed for his safety. They also apparently felt the same obligation to Wilbur, since they authorized two helmets and two vests. For a few weeks, Marty and Wilbur rode around wearing their helmets and vests, with a pump Mossberg 12 gauge handy on a special rack. After a while, though, the newspaper headlines returned to normal, and the helmets and vests went into the trunk of the patrol car. But if Harold ever walked into the Village and got rowdy, Marty and Wilbur would be ready.
At Wilbur’s prompting, I think, Marty came to the Village Trustees one September board meeting and reported that the Village had become a “laughingstock” because he wasn’t permitted to chase speeders outside of the Village corporate limits. Speeders would taunt him by racing through the Village, knowing that he would not follow. While the law permits a police officer in “close pursuit” to travel beyond the territorial limits of his community to make an arrest, many communities had a policy restricting their officers from doing so because so many high speed chases resulted in tragedy, frequently to innocent bystanders. Marty asked for permission to chase speeders outside of the Village. The Trustees were not enthusiastic, but neither did they like being the elected officials of a community that was becoming known for its lack of traffic law enforcement, especially considering its reputation as a speed trap just a decade before. The trustees finally agreed that Marty could in appropriate cases, chase traffic violators outside of the Village.
When I drove into the Village for the October board meeting, I was surprised to see a shiny new police car parked in front of the Village Hall. I knew that there was no appropriation for the purchase of a new police car during the fiscal year, and asked Mayor Strevell how they got the new car. Remembering that I had cautioned the Village Trustees against permitting close pursuit chases at the previous meeting, he was a little sheepish in explaining to me that the very Saturday after the previous meeting, Marty and Wilbur went in pursuit of a speeder heading west through the Village on Route 20. With the siren screaming, and the red lights flashing, Mary drove the cruiser out of the Village, and into the Town of Schodack. The speeder went faster and faster, and so did Marty and Wilbur. They raced past the veterinary clinic on the left, and the fruit stands on the right, up Bunker hill past Thoma Tires. As they neared Schoolhouse Road, Marty got closer and closer to the speeder, less than 100 feet from his rear bumper. Marty didn’t immediately realize that the reason he was closing the gap between the cars was that the speeder was slowing down to make a right turn into Schoolhouse Road. Instinctively, Marty turned right also. That had been a mistake, because Marty lost control of the cruiser when the tires slid on the gravel of Schoolhouse Road, and the police car slid into a stand of lilac bushes and rolled over onto its side. Fortunately, Marty and Wilbur were merely shaken up, but except for a bruised ego, were otherwise unhurt.
Getting back to the new police cruiser, Mayor Strevell explained that the wrecked car would have taken at least a month to have fixed, and the Village couldn’t be without a police car for that long a time, especially with Halloween coming. Marty and the Mayor called the Dodge dealer in Albany, who promptly arranged a trade-in with the Village’s insurance company, and delivered a new replacement for the wrecked car. Although nothing was said at the Village Board meeting, Marty didn’t chase speeders out of the Village again, and Wilbur’s wife decided that Wilbur should spend his spare time helping out around the house instead of riding with Marty.
Marty continued on as Nassau’s police officer for several uneventful years, until he had enough time in the New York State Municipal Retirement System to be eligible for a pension. He spent his remaining years as a security guard in a home for the aging in Albany.
