...Like a Fox

A father never stops being a father…no matter what the age of the child. So it's understandable that Wyckoff Police Chief Benjamin Fox experienced  a moment of absolute dread and panic on Sunday, February 6th  when most around the country were exhaling from watching the Super Bowl. That’s when reports first began to filter in about a Paramus police officer being shot while on duty.

Fox’s son is a Paramus police officer.

“I learned of the shooting through an alert and I didn’t know where he was. But I knew he normally worked those hours,” Fox recalls. “I called him on his cell phone and got no answer at first and you just get that knot in the pit of your stomach.”

It turns out his son was off-duty that evening, but the moment of panic still sits with him. “You flashback to that point when your kid is out in the yard when he’s 6 years old and you call for him and there’s no answer.  You get that moment of alarm of where is he.”

Fox had his own close encounter two years ago, when he came upon a motor vehicle accident that resulted in one of the motorists, Russell Stewart, grappling with Fox and attempting to disarm him. In his 34 years on the force Fox says the moment, and it’s narrowly avoided consequences,  stay with him.

“I’ve been involved in altercations and fights, but nothing where someone was clearly trying to take your gun. And it goes without saying you know what the consequence of that is if he succeeds," Fox says. Stewart was found guilty on February 3rd of attempting to disarm a firearm from a law enforcement official and aggravated assault upon a police officer. He’s scheduled to be sentenced on March 18th. Fox is currently working on his victim impact statement which he will read to the judge prior to sentencing.

Fox,  who's only drawn his weapon eight to 10 times and has never been forced to fire it, says the violent encounter with Stewart and the shooting of Paramus police officer Rachel Morgan serve as a reminder of how dangerous life can be on the job. 

“It just shows you that anything can happen. This is Bergen county, a relatively safe county  full of communities like Wyckoff.  But you pull over cars and you have no idea what may be going on,” he says. “ You may walk up to a car that you only stopped for a simple traffic violation. But you don’t know who’s in there. You don’t know what they have... or if they intend  to hurt you."

As both  Wyckoff police officer and the eventual head of the department, Fox has watched the town grow and deal with issues running from the mundane, such as increased traffic congestion, to those brought on with technology such as internet fraud. And like any administrator he’s been asked to do more with less. He notes that when he came onboard in 1977 the Wyckoff force had some 25 or 26 officers. Today it has 23.

“Economics and funding are always challenges. I’ve got 23 people but the town has grown. There’s more people, more traffic and more calls for service." But even with that increased development Fox believes there’s sufficient police coverage for the town. “I think we’re doing a darn good job with the number of people we have, even if we have less people than we did in the 70s. We’re getting the job done.”

Part of getting the job done means supporting preventative measures such as the Township’s new 24/7 ordinance, which would prohibit businesses from being open between the hours of 1am to 5am. Fox wrote a report supporting the proposal.

“Criminal activity is about opportunity.  At 3am there’s few people around which means few witnesses. If you’re the kind of person that’s predisposed to commit a robbery in the middle of the night it creates the scenario where you can have criminal activity by virtue of the stores being open,” Fox says. “I don’t want the business employees to be in that situation. I don't want other residents walking into a robbery in the middle of the night. And I don’t want my officers responding to calls if we can avoid it.”

The measure is considered preventative because the only 24-hour business in Wyckoff that could be impacted is the CVS pharmacy. But there’s a provision in the ordinance that would allow for pharmaceuticals and other first aid supplies to be sold during the late night hours.

Another measure Fox recently put to bed was a grievance filed against him by the Police Benevolent Association Local 261. The grievance was filed when Fox eliminated a long standing measure where the department paid for the ammunition of police officers personal off-duty weapons. Fox says the cost ran the department roughly $1000 a year out of its discretionary fund. 

 “Everybody is being asked to look for ways to cut. I’m under no requirement to buy the ammunition. It’s just something we had done in the past,” Fox said. “When I eliminated it the PBA filed a grievance against me and said I was changing their employment practices. They claimed it was a past practice... you’ve always done it and always have to do it. I disagreed." Fox denied the PBA grievance. The PBA had the option of filing an appeal to the Township Committee but chose not to do so, leaving the matter effectively settled.

Administrative issues aside, Fox says it’s been an enjoyable journey  since he joined the force earning $9,000 a year in 1977. He recalls actually taking a pay cut to join the force, leaving a position as assistant  director of security for the Riverside Square Mall Hackensack.

“They were going to pay me $15k a year, but I came here for $9k. To a 23 year old kid that $6k difference was a lot of money. But I turned it down because I wanted to be a police officer.  At the time you took the job because you wanted to be a police officer. There was no other reason to take it.”

Today at 56, he’s already dreading the mandatory retirement age of 65 that looms in the future. But Fox says there's plenty left in the tank and he still learns something new on the job every day. “I’ve got a fair amount of time left in me. And there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t come in here in the morning and see the nameplate that says 'Ben Fox Chief of Police' and think  that’s really really cool.”