HOT AND BOTHERED
‘Pro-cop’ man says ‘illegal’ traffic stop in Lawrence shook his faith in police, threatens legal action >>
LAWRENCE >> A Hamilton man is threatening legal action, calling himself a true victim of Lawrence Township’s alleged ticket-quota scheme while admitting he gave a powerful cop the middle finger.
“They impounded my car so they could make money,” Donald Ober said of Lawrence Police. “They charged me $300 for an impounding fee. I paid $300 to park my car in the police station for three hours. If this isn’t a money-making thing, I don’t know what is.”
Ober, 63, is the Hamilton motorist involved in a July 3 road rage incident with Lawrence Police Lt. Joseph Caloiaro, a tense encounter that began with Ober flashing Caloiaro the middle finger.
Ober used to be a major supporter of law-enforcement, he told The Trentonian, adding he would often give officers the benefit of the doubt, sing their praises and buy them coffee. But Ober’s viewpoint changed following his eluding arrest.
He said Lawrence Police “took someone who was pro-police in the biggest manner, and you turned him against you. It’s a crying shame.”
Six Lawrence cops filed an explosive lawsuit last week alleging the municipality and Police Chief Brian Caloiaro authorized an illegal ticket quota system that extorted unsuspecting motorists to maximize local government revenues. The lawsuit mentioned the incident between Lt. Joe Caloiaro and Ober as an example of the township’s allegedly “improper” traffic-enforcement operations.
The explosive ticketquota lawsuit did not mention Ober by name but detailed the alleged illegal high-speed chase initiated by Lt. Caloiaro, claiming the high-ranking cop was “incensed” that someone flipped him the bird and decided to get even.
The lawsuit claimed Ober “rightfully” got back inside his vehicle and left after Lt. Caloiaro refused to show him his badge.
“At that point in time, without having met any of the requisite criminal offenses required for a high speed pursuit, Lieutenant Caloiaro started an illegal high speed pursuit of the individual merely for giving him the middle finger,” the complaint said. “This resulted in the motorist being arrested and his vehicle being impounded.”
The whistleblowing cops and Lawrence PBA union say the department has “ignored requests to investigate this miscarriage of justice for that civilian.”
The Trentonian obtained body-camera footage that showed Lt. Caloiaro’s and Ober’s interaction after the July 3 chase. It doesn’t depict the initial stop because Lt. Caloiaro was driving an unmarked silver Ford Interceptor, according to police records.
Caloiaro’s unmarked SUV was “not generally used for patrol or traffic enforcement work” and didn’t have dashboard camera that would have captured the alleged illegal stop, according to Lt. Tim Drew, commander of the Lawrence Police internal affairs unit.
According to the body camera and police records, Lt. Caloiaro was off-duty, in plain clothes with his firearm by his side, heading to the police station for his shift prior to the road-rage incident with Ober.
The high-ranking cop was not wearing body camera during the July 3 stop.
Lt. Caloiaro wrote in a report he was driving northbound on Interstate 295 when he first encountered Ober’s gray Toyota Prius. The two were jockeying over lanes on the highway, when Ober allegedly almost struck the cop’s unmarked car.
“He swerved his vehicle into my lane as if he had not seen me there,” the lieutenant wrote in his report. “Prior to impact, he apparently realized that my vehicle was in the lane and swerved left back into the primary lane of travel. At that point, I saw him in my rear view mirror flailing his hands over the dashboard and holding his middle finger up at me.”
Ober was allegedly enraged and continued “alongside of my vehicle waiving his middle finger to me and what looked liked shouting,” the cop wrote in his report.
Lt. Caloiaro said he followed Ober on to I-295 due to his “erratic” and “unsafe” antics.
Ober later wrote in a misconduct complaint he filed with the department that he didn’t know Lt. Caloiaro was a cop and thought he was “a mad driver and I was quite scared of the situation escalating.”
The cop claimed in his report that he pulled over Ober after he nearly caused another crash on I-295 because he wanted “to ensure the driver Ober did not cause any other crashes putting other drivers in danger,” according to the report.
Lt. Caloiaro alleged that Ober got out of his Prius and “charged towards” his cruiser. Lt. Caloiaro said he had identified himself as a cop “multiple times” and ordered Ober back inside his Prius.
As Ober got back into his car, the lieutenant said he told dispatch the driver was “aggressive and hostile” and that he needed backup.
Not having a “Watchguard camera and not knowing if Ober posed a threat to me due to his previous behavioral pattern,” Lt Caloiaro said he waited for other on-duty officers to arrive.
Several minutes passed, and Ober got out of his car again “yelling and flailing his arms in an aggravated manner,” according to the report.
Lt. Caloiaro told Ober other officers in marked patrol cruisers were on the way. At that point, Ober got back into his car and drove away, the police report stated.
“My decision to pursue was based on Ober’s prior unsafe driving and erratic behavior while on the motor vehicle stop,” Lt. Caloiaro wrote, claiming Ober reached speeds of about 65 miles per hour. “I thought at that point that Ober was a danger to the public or himself.”
“It was not a high-speed chase,” Ober said in an exclusive interview last week. “I intentionally went slower than traffic in the righthand lane.”
In a gesture he now regrets, Ober gave Lt. Caloiaro the middle finger because, he said, “He cut me off” the roadway.
The bird-flipping incident occurred on Route 206 near the Interstate 295 interchange, not far from Lawrence Police headquarters, Ober said.
“I am very sorry about using my finger,” he said of the July 3 incident. “That’s an embarrassment for me. Everything that happened from that moment he did wrong.”
Caloiaro was “out of uniform, not yet on duty” when he pulled Ober over in the area of I-295 southbound while operating an unmarked police vehicle with emergency lights activated about 11 a.m., Ober said. “I said to him, ‘Show me your badge.’ I didn’t believe he was a cop. I said, ‘If you are not going to show me identification, I will leave,’ so I left.”
That prompted Caloiaro to summon backup, and several cops responded at high-speed to assist Caloiaro in conducting another motor vehicle stop on the Hamilton civilian.
Ober pulled over when he saw a marked patrol cruiser coming up behind him. Officer dash-cam videos captured the action after Ober was already stopped along I-295.
Lt. Caloiaro and another officer knocked on the window and ordered him out of the car. Ober was handcuffed without a fight after he got out of the car, the video shows.
Officers frisked the handcuffed Ober at the back of the car, along the highway. He and Lt. Caloiaro exchanged words about the stop.
Ober claimed he was confused over whether Lt. Caloiaro was actually a cop since he was in an unmarked car, in plain clothes and ig
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