Endicott
cop remains suspended after alleged threats
ENDICOTT — A village cop remains suspended with pay, one
month after allegedly threatening to shoot two young men he claimed started a
snowball fight on his property.
After allegedly making the threats, John L. Vanek, 52, was
charged with two misdemeanor counts of second-degree menacing. On Jan. 9, he
pleaded not guilty in Town of Union Court.
Vanek, who served as the police department’s canine officer,
is paid a $63,000 annual salary. The police department expects to submit an
internal review of the incident to the village board of trustees, Chief Michael
Cox said this week.
Until that report is reviewed and the criminal case
resolved, the village is reluctant to take action beyond leaving Vanek on
temporary suspension, said David Baker, Endicott deputy mayor.
“I don’t think he is getting special treatment, we’re just
being cautious,” Baker said.
Vanek had been driving through Endwell on Dec. 26, looking
for youths who ran through his backyard and started a snowball fight with
another teenager, when he stopped two young men walking home on Pheasant Lane.
Vanek, who was off-duty, brandished a police baton and asked
if the males, ages 17 and 20, were the ones who were going through his and
other people’s backyards, according to police documents.
“Chill out, dog,” the 17-year-old told him, the report
states.
“I am not your dog, I am a cop and I will beat your face
in,” Vanek responded, according to a statement the 20-year-old gave police. “If
I catch you (expletive) again, I will shoot you and sick my dogs on you.”
Court documents don’t mention whether Vanek was carrying a
firearm during the incident. In his statement to police, the 20-year-old said
Vanek appeared to be in a “shaking rage.”
Before Vanek sped away in his vehicle, he caught the young
men looking at his license plate number, court papers said.
He pulled alongside them again and said: “Vanek, Endicott
P.D., go ahead and report me,” according to the 20-year-old’s statement to
police.
After the incident, Vanek, a 28-year veteran of the police
department, called the sheriff's office and reported the youths had trespassed
in his backyard.
But the two people Vanek is accused of threatening weren’t
involved in the snowball fight, nor had they been in his backyard, according to
sheriff’s deputies.
Vanek is due back in court in April. His defense lawyer,
Michael Garzo, of Binghamton, didn’t return requests for comment.