A group of six high-ranking NYPD officers had to cancel their trip to Afghanistan last week after two of them, including Deputy Chief Scott Shanley (pictured), got drunk at an airport bar, according to a new report
Six high-ranking NYPD officials had to cancel their flight to Afghanistan last week, when crew members complained about two of them being too drunk to fly, according to a new report.
The six cops were supposed to fly to the Middle Eastern country for a week, to teach counter-terrorism and crime-fighting tactics to American soldiers who train Afgan officers, according to a police source who spoke to the New York Daily News.
When they arrived at Baltimore-Washington International Airport on August 10, they learned their Army-chartered flight had been delayed three hours so they went to an airport restaurant to get dinner and drinks.
One police official who spoke to the Daily News said they only had ‘a few’ drinks while they waited for their flight, and that they weren’t armed.
But when they boarded the flight, crew members questioned whether two of the men, Deputy Chief Scott Shanley (head of the department’s Critical Response Command) and Counterterroism Capt. Daniel Magee, were sober enough to fly.
Among the others in the group were Counterterrorism Chief John Waters and Lt. Chris Zimmerman, commander of the hostage negotiation team.
NYPD Counterterrorism Chief John Waters (left) and Lt. Chris Zimmerman (right, commander of the hostage negotiation team) were among the others in the group, who planned to spend a week training American soldiers on counterterrorism and crime-fighting tactics
A police source says the six cops then started arguing with the crew, with Magee yelling.
But a police official described the confrontation as a simple ‘discussion’.
‘There was no argument,’ the source told the Daily News. ‘[Chief of Counterterrorism James Waters] spoke to the crew. There’s a feeling that the crew kind of overreacted.’
Eventually, Waters decided that his whole group should get off the flight, since they couldn’t go to Afghanistan with a partial team.
The group returned to the city, and they are planning a make-up trip for October.
‘Look, no one feels good about it, but they are still going to do it probably in October,’ a police official said.
A police spokesman, Deputy Commissioner Stephen Davis, said the department is looking into the incident.
‘I am aware of no misconduct that occurred,’ said Roy Richter, president of the NYPD Captains Endowment Association. ‘This was a training operation that has been delayed and will be rescheduled sometime in the future.’