Lester to say goodbye after 10 years as chief
Becoming a cop was no easy feat for mortuary school grad
BY SETH MANDEL
Staff Writer

FILE PHOTO Jamesburg Police Chief David Lester (r), who has announced his retirement, is pictured in a 2003 photo with Mayor Tony LaMantia (l) and Sgt. James Mennuti.

For Jamesburg Police Chief David Lester, there was no place like home.

As a recent college graduate in 1980, Lester applied to five area police departments, all with the same result. Though he scored well on the departments’ tests, Lester’s post-graduate job experience consisted of working in his family’s funeral home, and each squad passed on hiring him.

“The towns were looking for officers that had prior police experience or prior military experience,” Lester said. “And even though I scored high, they weren’t really interested in a funeral director with a college degree in mortuary science.”

So Lester, a resident of Jamesburg since age 12, approached then-Mayor Joseph Tonkery and asked for help. A series of fortunate events landed Lester a full-time position in November 1982, and he began working his way up the ranks.

This month, 10 years after being named chief, Lester will retire.

“It was quite a learning experience to be hired to serve all the people in the community, and to address their problems,” Lester said. “I’m proud of the people in this department. I’m leaving the town in good hands with these guys.”

But the process that led to Lester’s opportunity to serve his hometown was not an easy one.

Lester graduated from mortuary school in 1977, but had difficulty finding a place for himself in the family funeral home.

“I got to see that as a small business, I was like the third man in a two-man business,” Lester said. “And being in my 20s, I wanted to branch out. I needed more of an income to buy a home and start a family.”

That’s when Lester began applying for openings in the East Brunswick, South Brunswick, Hillsboro, High Bridge and Plainsboro police departments.

He will never forget awaiting the results of the written test in South Brunswick with the other 500-plus applicants.

Gathered in the high school cafeteria, the hopefuls were told that when their name is called to proceed down the hallway to their left, where another officer would direct them further. Lester remembers the enviable looks of relief and excitement on the faces of those whose names were called, and watching the crowd thin as he remained in his seat.

“And there we are, kind of depressed, and looking at each other, and in the meantime, some of the geekiest-looking guys you ever saw, their names were called,” Lester said.

Finally, after most of the room was empty, the officer finished reading off the names.

“And I’ll never forget it, the lieutenant says ‘OK, those of you that are remaining, I just want you to know that all the names I called were the ones that failed,’ ” Lester said with a laugh. “And let me tell you, we all looked at each other, and we busted up. It was so cool.”

Though he passed that test, Lester did not make the final cut in South Brunswick.

Then there was Plainsboro, where Lester and a group of about 40 applicants had to perform speed and strength exercises in the Olympic-size pool at Middlesex County College. During one such activity, the applicants were told to dive in and swim to the other end and back.

Lester, however, had one unexpected obstacle.

“When he blows the whistle, I dived in, my trunks went right down to my knees,” he said. “There I am underwater, trying to pull my trunks up.”

Lester was still able to make good time, but ultimately was not hired by Plainsboro.

He was then encouraged by an upbeat, inspiring radio advertisement for the East Brunswick Police Department, which was hiring. Unfortunately, about 2,000 others may have heard the same advertisement. Out of those 2,000, Lester said, three or four were hired.

“So then, after a year of that, I went to Joe Tonkery in March of ’81, and said, ‘Put me on as a special. I’ve had enough,’ ” Lester said. “And I’ve been here ever since.”

A week after Tonkery appointed Lester as a special, part-time police officer, in March 1981, Lester got another break.

Recently elected Sheriff Joseph Specuzzo had credited Jamesburg’s heavy Democrat voting tendencies with his narrow victory. Specuzzo was appointing provisional sheriff’s officers, and offered to hire one of Tonkery’s officers to show his gratitude.

A week later, Lester was hired as a sheriff’s officer, and was working for the county full time during the week, and as a special officer in Jamesburg on weekends. Lester was only kept on at the sheriff’s office for 15 months, but shortly after that, a full-time officer’s position opened up in town, and Lester was hired.

The whole process gave Lester a greater appreciation for his job.

“It was a good experience, because it gives you insight as to the application process, and it introduces you to law enforcement,” Lester said. “It introduced me to the world of law enforcement. And it’s really a different world. You have to be in it to understand it.”

In 1993, Lester was promoted to sergeant, and in 1996 was named lieutenant and acting chief. He was formally promoted to chief in 1998.

During his tenure as chief, Lester oversaw the expansion of Jamesburg’s police force from nine full-time officers to 13, established a formal detective bureau, and helped move the department from two rooms in the old municipal building to its own station in the current municipal complex.

Lester even helped design the new building.

“Many towns that do a project like that have to hire a consultant to coordinate all those things, but we did that on our own,” Lester said.

Under his leadership, the department also established its own dispatch and communications center, lowered the crime rate even as the population grew, and increased the police vehicle fleet from four cars to seven, he said.

As the development sprawl moved through Middlesex County, Lester said, the borough’s police department played a significant role in managing the county’s traffic congestion because of the town’s strategic location amid county roads and popular destinations.

The police force also patrolled the borough’s section of Thompson Park, added bike patrols after purchasing five bicycles, and created a tactical team, which refurbished an armored truck, all during Lester’s 10 years as chief.

And throughout, Lester never stopped patrolling the town’s borders.

He still responds to calls about 25 percent of the time, and even fills in for absent crossing guards.

Lester said he has encountered the usual occupational hazards, but has never discharged his gun or had to use deadly force. He has, however, saved lives.

He once arrived at a scene on Sherman Street where the driver had stopped a car over a pile of dry leaves. The car was still running when Lester and another officer found the car engulfed in flames, with the driver slumped over the wheel. Lester smashed the driver’s side window with his flashlight, and he and another officer pulled the driver out of the car.

“Weeks later, there were still shards of glass making their way out of my wrist,” Lester said.

Another time, Lester responded to a report of a man choking at the dinner table.

“His face was blue, and they had him on the ground, and tried the Heimlich, unable to dislodge the food that he was choking on,” Lester said. “I tried a couple of maneuvers to dislodge, and I was able to dislodge it, and he immediately gasped for air and was breathing on his own, and he survived.”

Lester was formally recognized by the mayor and Borough Council for his efforts.

Lester’s list of accomplishments will officially become his legacy on March 14, when, after 25 years of service, he will turn his department over to Lt. Paul Karkoska, who was recently named acting chief.

“The way our police pension system is set up, it makes it desirable to retire when you have 25 years in the pension system, which I’ll have,” Lester said. “And because, for 25 years, we pay a lot of our income into it, at the end of 25 years we get a lot out of it.”

But that is far from all that Lester has gotten out of it.

“Cops are cops because they love police work, they love what police work is all about,” Lester said. “And when you retire, that’s what you miss.”

Lester listed the many lines of law enforcement, and said he was proud to work in municipal law enforcement, which in his opinion is the best possible police work.

“There are limits to all the other agencies, but with a township officer or city police officer, all aspects of police work are available to you throughout the career,” he said. “It’s so interesting, because you get to see all aspects of society.”

And though Lester left his father’s business to become a police officer, he was still following in the footsteps of a family member.

Among the photographs in Lester’s office is a photo of his great-uncle, Jack Hulse, a borough police officer in the 1930s and ’40s. As he looked at the photo, Lester reflected on the many ways to learn about the job of a police officer.

Lester graduated from the New Jersey State Police Academy, Sea Girt, in 1983. He also lived in Jamesburg for most of his life. But possibly some of the most important books he ever read were Hulse’s logbooks.

“It’s just so interesting to me to read what he did, his notes, on all his shifts in the ’30s and ’40s, and how interesting the town was at that time, and how much it’s changed,” he said.

Lester is going back into the other family business, however.

Lester’s father died about a year ago, and Lester and his brother Gregory, who Lester calls “the best in the business,” will be running the Lester Memorial Home, Church Street.

The two are also considering opening up a second funeral home in the area. When Lester was a kid, his family had two funeral homes, but sold one when they moved from South River to Jamesburg.

The significance was not lost on Lester.

“Here it is, 25 years later, a year after my father died, I’m getting back into the business,” Lester said. “It’s like I’m coming full circle.”