State Police Chief Says Christie Helicopter Denied Homeland Security and Training

by: huntsu

Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 03:46:02 PM EDT

OK, so he didn't quite say that, but in trying to defend Chris Christie using a state police helicopter to go to his son's baseball game, then to go to a political meeting about running for President with fundraisers from Iowas State Police Chief Rick Fuentes did say this:

It is important to understand that State Police helicopters fly daily homeland security missions, and use flight time for training purposes, more so lately as we acclimate our pilots to the new aircraft. These are flight hours that would be logged in any event.

So if Christie weren't traveling to watch his son play baseball and to be courted by rich Republicans at the tax-payer funded Governor's Mansion, that helicopter would have been flying homeland security missions and training state police personnel.

Nice.

huntsu :: State Police Chief Says Christie Helicopter Denied Homeland Security and Training

P.S. Yes, I know this is taking it too far and twisting the State Police Superintendent's words unfairly. But why the hell not put this out there when the GOP can get away with leading Presidential candidates questioning Obama's birth certificate? I mean, this post is several quarts short of crazy compared to what the GOP spits out every day as "wisdom."

Tags: Rick Fuentes, Christ Christie, (All Tags)

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State Police Chief Says Christie Helicopter Denied Homeland Security and Training | 4 comments

Gov = guinea pig? (0.00 / 0)

So the chief executive is allowed to be a passenger on a training flight? Shouldn't the pilots of Drumthwacket One be already trained and the best qualified?

Blog: http://www.deciminyan.org

by: deciminyan @ Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 20:47:18 PM UTC

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not exactly a guinea pig (0.00 / 0)

The pilots of the state helicopters are very well trained. In emergency services, personnel are always training and re-training so their skills are enhanced (and not lost), especially with the new technology being brought into service. I'm sure they also have to do a certain number of flight hours to keep their certification. Why not use some of these flight hours to fly the governor around?

Cops, firefighters, and EMT's go through training all the time. They don't stop once they get out of the academy. There's always new policies, procedures, equipment, technology, etc.

That being said, I think the governor was foolish to do what he did. Even if he has every right to do what he did, it obviously started a huge perception problem. Someone on his staff should have warned him that the Democrats and the press would react the way they did. Then again, someone probably did warn him and he was too arrogant to pay attention or care.

While this is an issue Democrats need to hit on now so they can chip away at his approval ratings, this will be a non-issue come Christie's bid for re-election. There are more important issues voters will care about when they decide to vote against the man.

by: southernbluedog @ Thu Jun 02, 2011 at 11:36:40 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I'm impressed that the NJSP has a helicopter (0.00 / 0)

that can actually get our Governor off the ground.

by: FormerBureaucrat @ Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 20:52:16 PM UTC

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Viridiana Beltran (0.00 / 0)

The NJSP were out in force, on the west side of the Navesink River, May 31, 2011 from 10:30am until 11:30am, helicopter, pontoon boat + cadaver dog, for about an hour. There is no better place in NJ to flight-train, in a helo, than west of Shrewsbury Ave.

by: repub4change @ Thu Jun 02, 2011 at 04:50:32 AM UTC

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State Police Chief Says Christie Helicopter Denied Homeland Security and Training | 4 comments