Ramapo Police will conduct an investigation into the treatment of a Chasidic female suspect following criticism that the officer was insensitive for fingerprinting the woman and asking her to remove her wig (as reported on Friday HERE on YWN).
But the incident also has resulted in a flood of support for officer Jonathan Quinn by town residents who say he is being treated unfairly and that he acted properly.
Advertisement
“We are very proud of our police department,” Town Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence said this afternoon during a meeting of the town’s police commission to discuss the incident.
“We are always looking for ways that our police department be more in tune with the needs of our community,” St. Lawrence, who heads the commission, added.
Reports of the investigation, which St. Lawrence called a “fact-finding mission,” are expected within about three weeks.
Most of the discussion during the meeting was conducted in executive session, which meant the public was not allowed to attend.
Quinn has not been punished over the incident, St. Lawrence said, but he has said the officer’s action was insensitive.
“I sincerely hope that the community will accept my heartfelt apologies for the insensitive behavior that occurred,” St. Lawrence said on Friday.
Today, he said his intention last week was to react to the situation in order to dampen any consternation that was growing in the community over the insensitivity. Members of the Hasidic community had threatened to protest over the action.
Quinn is on a previously scheduled vacation this week, Police Chief Peter Brower said.
(Source: LoHud)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
17 Responses
The community would be better off expressing their concern about the Chillul Hashem caused by a frum, reportedly chassidic, couple making a fuss about the manner of their arrest for welfare fraud. If they hadn’t made such a fuss this item would probably not have made the goyish media. The policeman has probably seen a woman with a shaved head before anyway; it is the fashion rage in New York these days. And if it is the woman’s embarrassment we are supposed to be concerned about, well as I said I am more concerned about the Chillul Hashem they have caused. No, I am not judging them guilty, they have caused a Chillul Hashem by screaming out aloud. That is a fact whether they are guilty or not.
I’m surprised no one is asking what this lady did to deserve a mug shot? I know she’s not an Al Qaeda terrorist, but if she was, would you care what they did to her? It’s better that people don’t do things that get them on the wrong side of the law.
I want to know is the Chasidic woman committed a crime. Then let’s start arguing for her constitutional rights.
““I sincerely hope that the community will accept my heartfelt apologies for the insensitive behavior that occurred,” St. Lawrence said on Friday.”
No need to apologize. This reminds me of nursing home scandals years ago and the ensuing televised congressional hearings. Except for one, frum owners had the good sense not to wear their yarmalkes for the cameras and world viewing,in order to avoid as much chillel hashem as possible. This is what halacha dictates in these circumstances.
Halacha would require this alledged law breaker to follow government regulations and not create public attention to this “chazer feesel” – look how religious I am, I wear a sheitle.
Well, she can’t complain that the prisons don’t provide glatt kosher for those attending the daf yome after daily minyanim.
(Years ago, even gadolim would remove their yarmalkes for government photographs, i.e., immigration; passports; etc.)
It’s to bad if your arrested you should just follow the rules and that is it. I agree with the cop for the lady to take off her wig because he needs a picture if she tries to escape jail, and the cop has to know what she really looks like. I don’t care if your chassidish or just orthodox it’s a law you have to follow as opposed to make a chilul Hashem.
its amazing how quick we are to tar and feather our own. Do all of you who are accusing her of creating a chillul hashem you know that she made a fuss to the media, or did perhaps others who became aware of her situation? We all know how quickly news spreads around the frum community, maybe someone who heard about it called the media.
And as far as making a fuss at the police station, its a lot less traumatizing for a mature older businessman to voluntarily remove his yarmulka for a photo than for a young 23 year old chasidishe girl who has never been in contact with a man (other than her husband) to be forced to be fingerprinted by a man and photographed by him without her shaitel. And thats on top of the trauma of being arrested!
Someone in a traumatic situation- especially someone as young as that with less life experience – will not neccessarily be able to think things thru in as logical a fashion as all you armchair quarterbacks out there.
We should all learn a lesson from this unfortunate incident: Before you commit a crime of any sort, remember the internet will help to spread the news like wild fire and create a huge chillul Hashem.
Charlie Brown – we live in a goyishe medina of chessed where our religious requirements and requests are treated with the utmost respect. Its amazing how quick some of us are to ignore the reality we know about and spring to the defence of foolish individuals even when their conduct causes a Chillul Hashem and embarrasses the klal. This couple, or either one of them, may be wholly innocent of the charges of welfare fraud that have been laid. However we as a community do not have a clean track record. Even if the goyim do not appreciate the depth of the various commandments not to steal, we should.
5, by that logic frum women shouldn’t be allowed to wear sheitels for license pictures.
(And just because she’s chassidic, that’s no proof that she shaves her head.)
That said, the whole situation is a chaval.
Dear cherrybim (#4),
There is a very famous picture of HoRav Chaim Brisker which is peputed to be a passport picture. His yarmulka is a full brisker shiur! You can see the picture at the following link http://gedolimpics.com/root/gedolim/iphoto/main2.cfm Then go to gallery/gedolim/black & white. It is the picture “Rav Chaim Brisker MDY488”
The frum and chassidic dress,is,like the wearing of tzitzis,supposed to remind us at all times that we are wearing the uniform of Am Yisroel and we must never be caught with our pants down (or shaitels off).The mezuzo on your door reminds you that activities done behind closed doors are watched by HKB”H.People who do welfare fraud,are going against the laws of the country and against Torah laws,too.The chillul Hashem caused by this activity,or just by being arrested and publicizing it by making a fuss about removing a sheitle for a mug shot,is much worse than what the cop did correctly in his line of duty. If she was so concerned about the removing of her shaitel,she should have done so without being a public nuisance.No one would have known that she was caught and arrested had she just removed the shaitel for the picture She made it public.
Just wait until muslim women start demanding that their mug-shots be taken without them having to remove their veil that covers their entire face aside for the eyes!
Let’s stop putting the blame on any one but let’s just say that if this was a moslem wman or.an indian woman and the police would have made her take off her kafia, heads would have rolled at police headquaters the ACLU would have there biggest hotshot lawyers protesting for her but when it comes to the jew be them right or wrong we have to bend over backwards not to make noise
Well I say no let the policman pay for his insensative actions if it was the other way around he would have givven them a ticket for “being disrespectfal to a law officer “
To Harotzehbilumshmo(10): Nice picture but not a regulation federal “headshot” for a passport. There are “yarmalkaless” godol photos but not online, except for photos of the last two chabad rebbes- you can google images.
on a differnet note about headcoverings……..
I was online at ben Gurion returning from Israel to the states. In front of me was a russian woman w/ an extremely large straw hat. The elal security person(a womwn) looked at the russians passport, looked at the lady and moved on to me.
she looked at me in my baseball cap, looked at my passport picture w/ a sheitel on, and then asked me to remove my hat.
i started yelling. how dare she ask me to remove my hat. she should know better. etc then i said “my husband has a beard, in his passport picture he was clean shaven, are you going to make him shave?”
she threw up her hands yelling “i cant deal w/ this lady”
a different elal security man walked over, said please remove your hat, i said no and he said “OK’ and walked away. even in the US, they just ask me to lift my hat to see if i have anything hiding underneath, they have never asked me to remove it. I cant believe that in israel of all places they have the nerve to ask a frum woman to take off her hat. BTW had i been in the states and they really pushed me to do it, i would have so as not to cause a chillul hashem but in Israel, NEVER
ses/#15 – The worst anti-semites, are the Jewish ones.
#18,
why not ask the russian lady to remove her Kentucky derby size straw hat? she of course was singling me out. It had nothing to do w/ security, because if it did, she would have told the russian to take off her hat. its very funny because in the line next to us was also an arab man who was being racially profiled and they pulled him out of the line the whole while, he was cursing that he was being singled out because he was an arab.