Racy photo scandal hits Hoboken Police

(Hoboken - WABC, November 15, 2007) (WABC) -- The mayor of Hoboken is reorganizing city government after a Hoboken Police lieutenant, already under fire for alleged racist behavior, shows up in pictures posing with guns and 'Hooter' girls.

The pictures were taken down south where the cops were supposed to help with Hurricane Katrina clean up.

Eyewitness News reporter NJ Burkett is in Hoboken with the story.

What started here as a civil rights lawsuit has become a full blown scandal in the Hoboken Police Department. There are new pictures that are in a word, shocking.

The man in the pictures is not only the commanding officer of the Hoboken Police Department's SWAT team, he is, in fact, the city's director of Homeland Security.

He posed for pictures in uniform with waitresses at Hooters who were in their own uniforms, and armed apparently with the SWAT team's high powered automatic weapons.

"This is not the face of the police department in the city of Hoboken," said Hoboken Mayor David Roberts.

Roberts was at a loss today to explain it. City officials believe the pictures were taken two years ago after Lieutenant Angelo Andriani traveled with the SWAT team to Louisiana to aid victims of Katrina.

The mayor says the team apparently made an unscheduled stop at Hooters on their way home. On Thursday morning, he confronted the chief of police.

"'When did you first learn of this' and of course the next question was 'is there more to come?' Did they make two stops on the way back to New Jersey?" Roberts said.

The chief, he says, denied knowledge of the pictures, which surfaced three weeks after several minority officers sued the department, complaining that Lieutenant Andriani is a white supremacist who demeaned them with hostile, racist insults.

The lieutenant did not answer his door on Thursday.

"Mr. Andriani is entitled to an investigation. He's entitled to having all these events looked at," Roberts said.

The mayor has refused to suspend or discipline, at least so far.

" I think they feel a little safer now that some of it has come out ..." said Manuel Gonzales, the minority officers' attorney.

The lieutenant is on what the mayor described as an "extended vacation."

The county prosecutor is now investigating and the mayor has appointed a civilian public safety director to oversee his police department.

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