Frank Cox approached the microphone and looked out over his two sets of families. Some were dressed in skirts and suits. The others were lined up at attention in front of him, staring firmly with guns at their sides.##M:[more]##
Cox, in a way, has served as the patriarch of the West Windsor Police Department family, and he considers his former colleagues as nothing less. The former police chief was also compared to a Hall of Fame athlete this month at a ceremony in which the West Windsor police station was named after him.
“The agency was his life,” said current West Windsor Chief Joe Pica. “He was to this agency what Tommy Lasorda was to the Los Angeles Dodgers.”
Cox, the second chief police in the department’s 40-year history, has been credited as being instrumental in building the department into what it is today. At the time the department was established in 1968, Chief Frank Maguire and Cox “had a vision to create a police department that was based on integrity that would provide courteous, compassionate, knowledge and professional service to its residents,” recalled Pica. “Together with enthusiastic dedication and total commitment, these men laid the ground work for what our agency is today — highly respected, well-trained, professional police officers who enjoy their jobs and take great pride of being part of this police agency.”
Cox took over as chief when Maguire retired in 1980 after serving 12 years as chief. Born in Princeton, Cox moved to West Windsor in 1952. While he was still in school, he started a part-time position as a mail boy for Opinion Research Corporation in Princeton. In 1960 he was promoted to research assistant, and later as assistant survey director. However, in 1962, he joined the Princeton Township Police Department, later moving over to help with the new West Windsor Police Department in 1968.
“His leadership through those years was instrumental to the progress of this agency and to the development of its members,” said Pica, who replaced Cox upon retirement in 2001. “Excellence and professionalism were Chief Cox’s core values, and it is those values that he instilled into all of his employees.”
Cox served as chief from 1980 until 2001, when he retired after 39 years in law enforcement, with 33 years in West Windsor — 21 of them as its chief — and six in Princeton.
When the West Windsor police station building was erected in 1994, Cox, who was chief at the time, and officials dedicated the structure to Maguire. But, “it is my belief, and the belief of many others that I have talked to that both Chief Maguire and Chief Cox should be recognized together for the many great things that they did to prepare this police department for today’s many difficult challenges that confront law enforcement officers on a daily basis,” said Pica.
Cox told the crowd that he was grateful to both his police family and his other family that has stood by him, including his wife, Christine, his daughter, granddaughter, and son-in-law. “When you have love and people who care for you, nothing else matters.”
