6 Promoted, 5 Officers Join Brick Police Department

BRICK, NJ — The Brick Township Police Department has promoted six officers and sworn in five new police officers as the department prepares for the new year.

The promotions and new hires are the result of recent retirements in the department.

The officers promoted were Deputy Chief Steve Gerling, Capt. Terrence Covert, Lt. Josh Jenssen, and Sgts. Marc Alexander, Jeffrey Person and Michael Bennett.

The new officers sworn in were Chase Cumella, Nicholas Dellaquilla, Nicholas Storch, Noah Storch and Ryan Bradford.

Gerling was promoted to deputy chief to replace Deputy Chief Donald Ling, who retired Dec. 1 after 30 years in law enforcement, including 27 serving in Brick.

Ling was one of the original members of the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office Fatal Accident Support Team, a traffic safety sergeant, an internal affairs lieutenant, and served as a captain commanding the operations division before overseeing the department's Administrative Services as deputy chief.

On Nov. 1, Officer George Williams retired after 25 years of serving Brick. He was a field training officer and hostage/crisis negotiator for many years.

On Sept. 26, Sgt. Jason Shepherd and Sgt. Peter Thomas retired, both after 25 years of service.

Shepherd worked 14 years in the drug unit and three years in the community policing unit as a D.A.R.E officer, and was a patrol sergeant on the evening shift for the last five years of his career.

Thomas spent nine years in the identification bureau and served as a patrol sergeant for the last eight years. He was a member of the SWAT Team and spent 12 years as a crisis negotiator.

The promotions and new officer ceremonies were held with an audience of family and members of the police department.