A New Jersey police officer resigned Thursday after a video went viral showing him saying he didn’t have to follow the law because “Obama decimated the freakin’ Constitution.”
On Monday, Helmetta, N.J. resident Steve Wronko and his wife were questioned by officer Richard Recine after they were seen taking photos and videos at the borough’s Municipal Building. In a video Wronko recorded of the encounter, Wronko argued it was his Constitutional right to take photos and videos in a public building. That’s when Recine went off.
“We don’t even care about that because Obama just decimated the freakin’ Constitution, so I don’t give a damn,” Recine said in the video. “If he doesn’t follow the Constitution, we don’t have to.”
Wronko responded saying the officer had to follow the Constitution because it’s “the law of the land.”
“Then you tell him that,” Recine said, referring to the President.
Recine later told told MyCentralJersey.com that he had “lost his temper” and made “a stupid statement.”
The community Police Director Robert Manney accepted Recine’s resignation Thursday, ending his 36-year career as an officer. Manney called Recine’s comments an “embarrassment,” according to MyCentralJersey.com
“I tried to explain to [Wronko] that since 9/11 you just can’t walk into a place and take videos,” Recine told told MyCentralJersey.com. “All he kept on doing was saying he had civil rights, and the Constitution, and he didn’t have to give me information. And I kind of like lost my temper … It was just a stupid statement on my part.”
Watch the video:
