Sheriff’s officer says ‘Everything’s cool’ after girlfriend called cops
TRENTON » A Mercer County sheriff officer tried to play it “cool” when police showed up at his doorstep after his girlfriend called 911 complaining he lashed out at her.
Sheriff officer Jason Young opened the front door of his Hamilton home in January and tried to smooth it over with the cops.
“Everything’s cool,” Young said when he was asked what happened. “I just came from the gym. Cut my hand.”
“We gotta talk to her,” one of the cops said.
“OK, let me go get her,” Young said.
“No, she called us,” the officer responded. “You’re on body camera, just so you know.”
The Trentonian obtained body cam, 911 tapes and police reports through a public records request. The newspaper sued for the records after the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office refused to release them.
Responding Hamilton cops immediately recognized Young as a Mercer County sheriff officer, and at least twice warned him he was being filmed, as an apparent courtesy to a law enforcement officer.
The 911 dispatcher talked in “code” to Young’s frightened girlfriend, who called the emergency line six times after the MC sheriff officer gave her a black eye, knocked her to the ground and dragged her by her hair into the living room after he walked in on her drinking a beer.
On the 911 tape, the dispatcher asked, “Is someone in the house that’s abusing you?”
The woman’s voice was muffled as she hid from Young in an upstairs bedroom closet.
“That’s why I’m trying to talk in code to you, so if anyone can overhear us,” the dispatcher said. “Is there someone in the house who’s going to hurt you?”
“He already has,” the woman said.
The cops had Young step outside when they arrived.
Wearing a maroon sweatshirt that had specks of blood and baggy gray cargo sweatpants, Young sat on the step of his township apartment, shooting the breeze with officers. Cops noticed Young’s bloodied knuckles as they spoke to him.
Young told them he had just gotten home from the gym when he walked in on his beerswilling lady downing a cold one after she had allegedly given up boozing.
“She was drinking,” Young said, giving his rundown of events. “She starts harassing me. She just starts fighting with me saying that she’s never going to stop. She quit. She just started up again. She waits until I leave the house, I come home, then it’s total ruckus. Just argument.”
Young was hooked, booked and put in the back of a patrol car while Hamilton cops finished talking to his girlfriend.
The cop asked Young, “You been through this before?”
Young responded, “Yeah, unfortunately,” as the cop struggled to buckle him into the police cruiser for the long ride of shame back to headquarters.
While he was waiting in the back of the cop car, one of the cops asked the sheriff officer if he was comfortable.
“Young, you all right back there,” the cop asked. “I think there’s a sergeant coming out because you’re a law enforcement officer. You know what they got to do. They got to do their thing. Like I said, you’re detained for now.”
After interviewing the woman inside, another cop returned to the patrol car and asked the sheriff officer about surrendering his departmentissued gear.
“Jason, you’re on camera,” the cop said. “Where’s your gun, your badge? And do you have an off duty.”
Young responded that he didn’t have an “off-duty” piece and his work-issued one was in a locker at his job.
Young was charged with simple assault and suspended without pay following his arrest. It represented another black eye for the Mercer County Sheriff’s Office, which had three officers arrested in a five-month span.
Aaron Scolnick, a sheriff’s officer since 2008, was arrested last November after allegedly beating up his wife at their Hamilton home.
Lt. Scott Schoellkopf was also charged with assaulting his wife at their Chesterfield home on April 28. The simple assault charge was dismissed, and Schoellkopf returned to work following the death of his wife, Regina, from an apparent suicide.
Young’s case is ongoing. His girlfriend didn’t want to file for a temporary restraining order.
Trentonian staff writer David Foster contributed to this report.
Bullard, 25, and Dajuan Thompson, 31.
When police searched the property, they found 510 decks of heroin, 20 grams of marijuana, and three weapons: a .45 caliber Sig Sauer, a .22 caliber Beretta, and a defaced Springfield shotgun.
Police also seized $2,436 as suspected proceeds from drug sales.
Officials say Isler started establishing drug turf on Spring Street after 10 members of a heroin-dealing crew that operated in the area of Passaic and Spring streets were busted last year. Local and federal officials took down that group after a lengthy investigation that intercepted phone calls, text messages, setup controlled drug buys and used confidential sources to gain enough information to take down the crew. The majority of the members of that crew pled guilty and have been sentenced to serve time in state prison.