Trenton police director evades questions about cop under IA probe for hiding flask
TRENTON » As the capital city grappled with the loss of a Trenton cop and a wild car chase that injured six officers, TPD Director Sheilah Coley was not in the mood to answer questions about another of her officers who is being investigated by internal affairs.
Coley said she had not watched body-camera footage of city cop Derek Simpson hiding a silver flask from another officer’s bodyworn camera.
The Trentonian last week published a story about the footage that it had to sue to obtain.
“Actually, I don’t read The Trentonian,” the director said when told that the footage was readily available for her to watch.
Caldwell-Wilson suffered a serious head injury and was treated at the hospital.
She was issued tickets for careless driving and failing to maintain a lane, but cops did not establish probable cause for a blood draw that could have proven whether she was drunk at the time of the Super Bowl Sunday crash.
Caldwell-Wilson denied drinking before getting behind the wheel that day, and claimed she intended to give the flask to a friend. She said the flask had never contained alcohol.
The councilwoman said she was still waiting to receive hospital records that she said would show she did not have alcohol in her system at the time of the crash.
Simpson found the flask in Caldwell-Wilson’s glove compartment.
Before showing a colleague what he found, Simpson directed Officer Anthony Cariola to turn his turn his body away from him to prevent Cariola’s body camera from capturing the flask.
Simpson didn’t raise the flask high enough so that it wasn’t shown on his own body camera.
He’s been under IA investigation since the incident with no outcome.
“I don’t think it’s a good look any time any officer moves, replaces or otherwise comes in contact with evidence if it has not already been photographed and documented,” Coley said.
Simpson omitted any mention of the flask from an accident report he filed in the case.
Coley couldn’t say whether Simpson will face disciplinary action or when the IA probe would conclude.
“I’m not here to talk about internal investigations at this point. I’m here to talk about a loss of an officer that we will miss greatly. I’m here to talk about the firepower that is on city streets and all the things we need to do to make sure that we can get that firepower off the streets,” she said.