A New Jersey police chief who was busted and charged with drunken driving last month could be seen lying on the ground next to his vehicle with his pants down — and responding officers made fun of him before realizing who he was, a report said.
Brian Pesce, a Bordentown Township Police Chief, was discovered by responding officers on the floor in nearby Hamilton after a female witness called 911 to report a “drunk” driver “weaving all over the place” and nearly hitting a mailbox, according to documents first obtained by NJ.com.
“He’s gonna kill somebody,” the caller warned of the pickup driver.
She called for a second time to report that the vehicle had stopped and the driver was “on the ground in the middle of the road … He’s so obliviated,” the report said.
Upon arrival, responding officers found the 23-year police veteran lying on the ground behind his truck late on April 22, bodycam footage showed.
“Keys in the middle of the road; cellphone in the middle of the road,” one of the responding officers says with a hearty chuckle.
Noticing a wet patch on the ground, the same officer suggests with clear disgust that he “p—ed on his tire and then took a spill,” the footage shows.
The police chief claimed he was 35 — even though he is 46 — and then mumbles, “What’s the problem?”
“You’re sleeping in the middle of the road,” one replies, while the other says, “Your pants are down.”
When one cop asks if he is diabetic, Pesce says “Not at all” — with the officer replying, “Probably the wrong answer.”
After the snippy exchanges, one of the officers searches Pesce’s vehicle and finds his police badge — and shouted, “Ohh,” according to NJ.com.
The two responding officers subsequently turn off their body-worn cameras, with their tone markedly different when the cameras are switched back on, with Pesce now being called “chief,” the outlet noted.
As the officers were escorting Pesce into an ambulance with an apparent head wound, the chief sounds confused as he says, “I drove? … I wasn’t driving anywhere.”
Pesce was later discharged from the hospital and taken into custody where he was charged with five traffic offenses, including drunken driving, reckless and careless driving, failing to report an accident and leaving the scene involving property damage, the report said.
Pesce, who had been chief since 2018, was put on restricted duty in the department. He had got the top job after initiating an internal affairs action against his then-boss, Frank Nucera, who is scheduled to start serving a 28-month prison sentence this week on federal hate crime charges, NJ.com noted.
Nucera — who allegedly used the N-word and likened black people to ISIS — was convicted of lying to federal authorities questioning him about an attack on a black teen in custody.
