{"id":7153,"date":"2015-12-16T01:15:10","date_gmt":"2015-12-16T06:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=7153"},"modified":"2015-12-16T01:15:10","modified_gmt":"2015-12-16T06:15:10","slug":"brick-welcomes-new-police-chief-superior-officers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2015\/12\/brick-welcomes-new-police-chief-superior-officers\/","title":{"rendered":"Brick Welcomes New Police Chief, Superior Officers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Chief<\/a>

Chief James Riccio is sworn into office. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

For Brick Township\u2019s new police chief, Tuesday night was a \u201cdream come true.\u201d<\/p>\n

Surrounded by his wife, children, brother and parents, with hundreds of police officers from across the state looking on, James Riccio took the oath of office after the township council unanimously voted to approve his appointment as police chief.<\/p>\n

\u201cI worked my entire career with hope for this day,\u201d Riccio said. \u201cI\u2019m fortunate because a lot of people don\u2019t get to see their dream come true, and for that I\u2019m eternally grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Riccio, formerly the department\u2019s deputy chief, comes to the job with three decades of law enforcement experience, including leadership roles in Brick and beyond. He was one of the investigators behind what eventually became known as Operation Bid Rig, which led to the arrest of corrupt politicians throughout the state. He joined the Brick department in 1986 and over the course of the next 28 years, worked on the township\u2019s first SET Team, was assigned to the Ocean County Narcotics Strike Force, and completed special assignments for both the Ocean County Prosecutor\u2019s Office, and the FBI. He oversaw much of the township\u2019s law enforcement response to Superstorm Sandy in 2012.<\/p>\n

Riccio has also spent more than 30 years as a volunteer with the Breton Woods Fire Company and is a District 1 Fire Commissioner.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis man is a devoted, devoted officer,\u201d said Councilwoman Marianna Pontoriero. \u201cHe\u2019s well respected by his peers, hard-working, boots-on-the-ground, hands-on. More than that, he\u2019s a wonderful person with a heart of gold.\u201d<\/p>\n

Riccio will earn $167,707 as chief, according to officials.<\/p>\n

Tuesday night\u2019s police promotion ceremony, held at Civic Plaza at the start of a township council meeting, also included several other promotions of officers.<\/p>\n

\"Robert<\/a>

Robert Mazza is sworn in as deputy police chief in Brick. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

Capt. Robert Mazza was sworn in as the department\u2019s new deputy chief. Mazza, a 27 year veteran of the department, has served as a shift commander, a patrol supervisor, and is currently commander of the investigations division as well as the Special Enforcement Response Team.<\/p>\n

Lt. Donald Ling and Lt. Vincent Pacitti were both promoted to captain positions, and will work side-by-side with Captain Ron Dougard.<\/p>\n

Sergeants Michael Zolezi and Joe Forester were both promoted to lieutenants, and officers Paul Catalina and Pete Thomas were both promoted to sergeants.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New deputy police chief, superior officers also named and sworn in during ceremony…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7154,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[24,1825,1753,1699,1824],"class_list":["post-7153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-police-fire-courts","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-deputy-police-chief","tag-james-riccio","tag-police-chief","tag-robert-mazza"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/IMG_4822.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-1Rn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}