By Scott Morgan and Bill Sanservino
For Lt. John Stemler, the new officer in charge of the Ewing Police, the number one priority is restaffing a department that has been depleted by the mass retirement of officers over the past year.
“The biggest thing right now is that we’ve got to get some manpower on board,” said Stemler, who was named officer in charge in July to replace the retiring Lt. Ron Lunetta.
Last fall, Mayor Bert Steinmann, who acts as the town’s director of public safety, expressed concern that a wave of upcoming retirements would sap the department of much of its manpower by June.
By July, Steinmann’s worries were proven correct. Compared to a little more than a year ago, the department is down by about 20 officers. By mid-July, there were 56 officers on the roster — a total, said Stemler, that echoes 1970s figures.
The differences then were that fewer people lived in Ewing — the U.S. Census puts the township’s population between 32,000 and 34,000 between 1970 and 1980, and at almost 37,000 by 2013 — and crime was not so violent so often.
“Back when I came on,” said Stemler, a graduate of Ewing High School and a resident of the township, “if you heard about a shooting, it was a surprise.”
Today, especially with Trenton right next door, a day without hearing about a shooting is becoming just as much a rarity, he said.
Ewing has hired a few officers from other agencies who Stemler said have infused the department with some needed new blood and energy. And if the department can get the initial 20 new recruits it needs, as it expects to do shortly, Stemler hopes to see them enter the academy by September and be ready for training by February or March.
That way, he said, “they can become effective officers by next June.” Ultimately, Stemler hopes to see 90 or so officers under his command.
Stemler also hopes to stagger some additional hires so that in 25 years, there isn’t another wave of vacancies that the future department will have to contend with.
Last September, Steinmann told the Observer the process he expected the township to follow for the hiring of new officers.
“Currently we are working with the State of New Jersey and reviewing the Rice List, that is made up of recently laid off police officers from other towns around the state,” the mayor said. “We also work with the Mercer County Sheriff’s Department should there be a lateral request for transfer.”
The third avenue, he explained, is to request an exam from the Civil Service Commission for an active list of new recruits. “We have recently requested the exam from the state as we will have some retirements occur in 2014. All new hires have to pass a physical exam, a background check and a psychological exam.”
Until the new recruits are in place, the department will continue to operate on what essentially is a skeleton crew, said Stemler. Some services in the department, such as the detective bureau, have been poached to simply keep adequate manpower on the streets to deal with crime, Stemler said. Others, such as foot patrol and bicycle patrol, have been put on hiatus until the roster fills back up.
Returning the bike and foot patrol is as close to a first-round goal as Stemler can think of right now, but he is eager to reinstate the services for the simple reason that he doesn’t want the community to only see its police officers as uniforms who respond to crimes.
“Most people are glad to see the police,” he said. “People who don’t, it’s because typically we’re there at the worst moments of their lives.” Often, he said, people suffering a traumatic situation see police officers as cold and official.
“People sometimes think we don’t care,” Stemler said. “We do care, but we need to do our job.”
Getting officers on the street and recognized as part of the community, then, lets people associate them as neighbors, not just people with bad news. The few times this year that Ewing had managed to get a foot patrol or two happening, the response has been very positive, he said.
Beyond the foot and bike patrols, Stemler is looking to replenish the detective bureau and the number of special-unit officers for the township’s currently halted gang enforcement bureau and its counterterrorism squad. Still, despite the strained manpower, Stemler said his officers are working long hours and doing the job better than can be expected.
Stemler, whose father, John Stemler II, was himself a lieutenant in the Ewing Police Department (and who is very proud of his son), and whose grandfather also was a police officer, grew up always knowing he wanted to join the force.
A graduate of Mercer County College, Caldwell College and the Trenton Police Academy, Stemler joined the department in 1994 as a 911 dispatch operator. Six months later he was hired as a patrol officer and in 1998, he began working in the SWAT division, where he conducted hostage rescue and high-risk search warrants and arrests.
In 2004, Stemler joined the detective bureau, where he worked for three years. He found the investigative work interesting, but said he more enjoyed his time as a patrolman.
“It was great being on road patrol,” he said. “It’s something different every single day. I enjoyed working in the detective bureau, but sometimes you leave on Friday with a case on your desk and you come back Monday morning and it’s still on your desk. On patrol, you never know what you’re going to get.”
Stemler also supervised the K9 division and the department’s internal affairs investigations unit until January, when he was made a lieutenant in charge of the criminal investigations bureau, patrol bureau, and Office of Professional Review.
As the department restocks, Stemler hopes to continue its work with its most besieged neighbor, Trenton.
Stemler said the city often uses Ewing officers as backup for operations, particularly those involving violent crime. This shift towards neighbors helping neighbors is one of the things that has changed about policing since Stemler joined the force.
Technology, particularly the in-car computers and investigations software, are maybe the most obvious changes, and the types of crimes Ewing handles have, unfortunately, gotten more serious over the years. But the co-departmental assistance is a welcome trend that has benefited all involved.
“It used to be that Ewing handled Ewing and Trenton handled Trenton,” he said. “But it’s not like that anymore.”
Lt. John Stemler has been named officer in charge of the Ewing Police Department, effective in July.,
