Local blogger, Bernie O’Hare, has started an online petition calling for the firing of Nazareth Chief of Police, Thomas Trachta.
O’Hare, a resident of Nazareth and owner of the blog, Lehigh Valley Ramblings, has been revealing disturbing information about Trachta’s actions and the improper actions of a couple of officers under his command.
Trachta, was a retired police officer from Brooklyn, NY, before becoming Chief of Police in Nazareth.
You may recall I wrote about Chief Trachta last week, when he captured the Sticker Gang; three young men who dared place small 2″ stickers around Nazareth that read, “Fire Trachta” on them. Upon their turning themselves in, Trachta called the media and had the three do a “perp walk” in handcuffs and belted shackles.
The petition that calls attention to Trachta’s time as CoP in Nazareth, reads as follows:
On June 27, 2014, he conducted a staged perp walk of litter suspects, even to the point of handcuffing and shackling them; and
He blackballed a Nazareth resident who served his country honorably in Iraq, and who is currently employed as a Bangor police officer, from the Nazareth Police Department; and
He falsely represented that this officer, a Nazareth resident, had been involuntarily committed, and attempted to get him fired in Bangor with the same false representation; and
He has avoided hiring military veterans, instead hiring officers who were either fired by or left other departments knowing they were about to be fired; and
He has refused to take any disciplinary action against a part-time police officer engaged in an an on-duty affair, despite complaints from numerous Nazareth residents, including Gehret; and
He refused to take any disciplinary action against another part-time police officer (ERIC SCHWAB) who, after responding to a domestic disturbance on June 9, 2014, returned and drank with one of the victims; and
He has created a culture of intolerance for any criticism of the police department that resulted in Officer Eric Schwab posting a Facebook comment asking fellow police officers to “light this fucker up” in response to factual criticisms made by O’Hare on his blog; and
He has usurped the authority of Borough Council with criminal prosecutions and threats of criminal prosecution, including a file on each member of Council; and
He has forced the ouster of long-time members of the Police Committee, and
He has used Borough resources (the state police crime lab control number) to request investigation, not of crime in Nazareth, but criminal mischief directed at him in Bushkill Township; and
He abused borough resources by using the borough control number to request a state police criminal background check for a part-time Nazareth police officer who was applying for full-time jobs in other municipalities, falsely indicating it was for an investigation.
Disclaimer: On January 4, 2016, the owner of WestEastonPA.com began serving on the West Easton Council following an election. Postings and all content found on this website are the opinions of Matthew A. Dees and may not necessarily represent the opinion of the governing body for The Borough of West Easton.
