My name is Joseph Aiello, and I am former Hoboken Police Department Lt. Janet Aiello's son. I met with reporter Madeline Friedman on Tuesday about my father's last interview and about what he thought about the Hoboken Police Department and the recent scandal.
In the aftermath of the latest Police Department scandal, I guess my father thought it somewhat necessary to speak up about the department and what she thought about all the recent news. My father stated in last weekend's interview that certain favorites of the chief can be homophobic, gender phobic and distrusting, which as I remember is not only true but sometimes a bit too common.
Before my father's sex change operation, I can remember going to work with him a lot when I was a kid. As far as I knew, my father was a super cop. There was no job that the department asked of him that he couldn't or wouldn't do above and beyond the call of duty. My father was looked up to by every citizen and everyone in the department including the higher ranks. He fought and strived for the advancement of his department and the city, only to be skeptically and wrongly judged by those who he helped and gave everything to over his 25 years on the force.
Upon my father's return to the department as a woman, she was not greeted with open arms. The people she once worked with side by side were now changing their shifts just to avoid her. For a fact, I know of incidents in the department where officers would draw lewd and disgusting pictures of and about my father and then put them on her locker.
They would assign her to the dirtiest changing facilities they had and give her shifts that nobody else wanted. Whether it was admitted or not, my father was being forced into retiring by the people she once shared a desk with.
People that are supposed to have your back in the worst of situations are now disrespecting you right to your face. These men take an oath when they become police officers, and the oath of many men has been broken. Every day since her return, she fought to keep her job. There was months of countless court battles and media attention, only because my father wanted to do what she loved and worked her whole life to accomplish, without the harassment and ridicule from fellow workers.
My father will forever be the greatest cop the city of Hoboken has ever seen, and I don't mean that from a formerly 11-year-old son's point of view.
The media extravaganza over my father became so big not just because of what happened when my father came back to work but because of how the department wrongly and unjustly decided to handle it.
So I can see why some of today's cops can say they feel wronged by those they work with because in today's society there's always going to be that person or group of people who take things too far, the guy that thinks he's untouchable.
Just like you shouldn't let an unqualified Hooters waitress hold your gun while someone takes a picture, you shouldn't be making fun of your co-workers in racial or degrading ways.
As for my father, she fought her job and her rights just as anyone else should. She stood up in a time when an act like that was considered unthinkable in such a high-profile profession. My father had to fight just to be herself.
Sincerely,
Joseph G. Aiello
Post a Comment