This Day in History: 1930-11-28
Balancing the conflicting claims of simultaneous duties, made life difficult for Chief Smith. He was the only full-time peace officer for Mahwah. For example, he was called by a West Mahwah woman who signed a complaint against her husband for physically abusing her. Smith went to arrest him, he then received another report of about an open door in a supposedly empty house in Cragmere. Smith took the arrested man to the Ramsey State police Barracks to be fingerprinted. He left him there and went to Cragmere to look over the open door. He found nothing obviously wrong there, locked the door and returned to take the wife beater to the County Jail in Hackensack. On December 4th his wife called to say, she wanted her husband back. Smith told her, that she would have to arrange that with the Judge. Mahwah Police Book 1930-1932 (Bristow)