http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/21/nyregion/fort-lee-police-chief-recalls-chaos-and-turmoil-as-bridge-lanes-were-closed.html 2016-09-20 21:12:09 Fort Lee Police Chief Recalls Chaos and Turmoil as Bridge Lanes Were Closed The chief, Keith M. Bendul, testified Tuesday as the first witness in the trial of two former Christie administration officials charged with shutting down lanes leading to the George Washington Bridge. === NEWARK — Just after 7 a.m. on Sept. 9, 2013, Keith M. Bendul, the police chief in Fort Lee, a town on the New Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge, had just pulled in to a Department of Public Works facility to refuel his Ford Expedition when he received an anxious radio transmission from a traffic officer. Speaking from his station near the bridge, the officer warned him that movement was at a standstill. That morning Mr. Bendul learned for the first time that there was to be a new traffic pattern around the bridge. “I immediately knew it was not going to be good,” he recalled. On Tuesday morning, Mr. Bendul was the first witness in the trial of two former Christie administration officials charged with shutting down lanes leading to the bridge from Fort Lee and then covering it up. Speaking in a grave tone, Mr. Bendul recounted the frantic moments after the lanes were closed and his efforts to deal with the turmoil. Though the broad details of the scheme are familiar — prosecutors say the lanes were closed to punish the mayor of Fort Lee for declining to support Gov. His methodical recounting of the first day of the lane closings underscored the most damning aspect of the prosecution’s case: that the defendants, Bill Baroni and Bridget Anne Kelly, had not only schemed to cause a major traffic jam, but had then ignored pleas for help from local officials, who said that the gridlock was threatening lives. “I had a great concern for public safety,” Mr. Bendul said. After fueling his truck, Mr. Bendul drove to an area close to the bridge, where traffic had virtually stopped. The Eventually, Mr. Bendul connected with Robert Durando, the general manager of the George Washington Bridge for the Port Authority. Mr. Durando asked the police chief to meet him, but not in his Port Authority office. Instead he wanted to to meet in a municipal parking lot. “I thought it was very weird. I thought it was cloak and dagger,” Mr. Bendul said Tuesday. “It just struck me as very, very odd.” Without bothering to change from his golf shirt and jeans, he drove with a deputy through traffic on the wrong side of the street, sirens blaring. “I was hot,” he said of his demeanor going into the meeting. “Public safety was being compromised.” Mr. Durando explained that the lane closings were part of a traffic study, Mr. Bendul recalled. “I told him it was a miserable failure. End it, stop it,” he said, and added that the gridlock was contributing to series of crises: a missing 4-year-old child, a patient in cardiac arrest, a car accident and numerous complaints of road rage, among other problems. “I told him bluntly that if anybody dies, I’m going to tell those people to sue him and everybody at the Port Authority,” Mr. Bendul said. Mr. Durando told Mr. Bendul that Mark Sokolich, the mayor of Fort Lee, should contact Mr. Baroni, who was Mr. Christie’s top appointee at the Port Authority. Before their meeting ended, Mr. Bendul recalled one last comment from Mr. Durando. “He was very nervous, he seemed afraid,” Mr. Bendul said. “He told me if anybody asked if this meeting occurred, he would deny it.” Mr. Bendul and his deputy then met with Mr. Sokolich, a Democrat, at his Borough Hall office. The mayor tried unsuccessfully to reach Mr. Baroni several times. Eventually, he was told by a Port Authority representative that the lanes would be closed the next day.