The governor's failure to attend Trooper Sean Cullen's funeral also showed a lack of respect for our region.
It's been almost a week since Sean Cullen, the New Jersey State Police trooper who died after being hit by a passing motorist's car in West Deptford Township, was memorialized at a moving funeral Mass.
Cullen, 31, was helping another motorist March 7 along Interstate 295, when he was injured. His line-of-duty death took place the next day. This past Monday, as the South Jersey Times described it, "a sea of blue and gray" lined the road as the dedicated public servant's body traveled by hearse from St. Charles Borromeo Church to Lakeview Memorial Park, both in Cinnaminson.
Noticeably absent: One Gov. Chris Christie.
In South Jersey, it might have been disrespectful to Cullen's memory in the hours after his funeral to make a fuss of out of what looked to some like a snub by the governor. The trooper was attached to the Bellmawr barracks and had served on other local police departments.
Outside the immediate area, there was no respectful waiting period. Tuesday's front-page tabloid headline in the New York Daily News screamed "CHRIS' DEAD COP DISS." Classy, huh?
The Daily News article pointed out that Christie was spotted campaigning for Donald Trump in North Carolina on the eve of that state's primary, around the same time Monday that Cullen's funeral was taking place. Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno represented the governor there. During his own presidential campaign, Christie missed funerals for two other New Jersey police officers who were killed while on duty.
By mid-week, as the controversy bounced into Trenton, Christie tried to defuse the issue. But he dug in deeper, telling reporters that he and the lieutenant governor routinely divide up the day's duties. He explained that he'd been slated to attend a North Jersey groundbreaking, not the funeral, when the chance to campaign for Trump outside the state came up.
We hope enough time has passed since Cullen's funeral to suggest that one way the governor could have shown respect for fallen officers, and prove that he is again fully engaged with his home state, would have been to send Guadagno to the groundbreaking and show up himself in Cinnaminson. It might have also helped the governor shore up his particularly bruised standing in South Jersey, where some are still riled about his failure to deal promptly with severe weather incidents.
Christie knows that this is a recurring problem that won't subside until he stops fleeing New Jersey to be Trump's surrogate-in-chief. Calls for him to stay put and do his job, or resign, are growing louder. When he failed last week to demonstrate maximum empathy for an officer's grieving family - as well as that officer's extended law enforcement family -- he also missed an opportunity to curtail some questions about his commitment to his state.
Send a letter to the editor of South Jersey Times at sjletters@njadvancemedia.com