THE BLUE MAGAZINE FINAL ISSUE 2027

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

Seventeen years later, there is a question I have been asked many times over the years.

“Why did you start The Blue Magazine?”

The answer really begins before there was a Blue Magazine.

When I started what was then NJ Corrections Now, the idea was simple. I believed law enforcement needed a place where we could communicate with one another, share information, tell our own stories and build a stronger network.

I wanted officers and departments to contribute. I wanted people from different parts of the profession to share what they knew and learn from one another. I wanted the publication to become a place where information could move beyond the walls of one department and reach people across the job.

There were stories that weren’t being told. There were issues affecting officers that deserved attention. There were people doing important work who rarely received recognition. More than anything, I believed bringing those voices together could make the profession stronger. Not through politics, not through sensational headlines, through conversation, through trust and through journalism. The magazine began as NJ Corrections Now because that was the profession I knew.

But it didn’t take long for people to begin helping us grow. One of the first people I needed to meet was Tony Williams, State Delegate for New Jersey State PBA Local 105. The New Jersey State Policemen’s Benevolent Association is a statewide law-enforcement labor organization made up of local unions representing officers throughout New Jersey. Local 105 represented state correctional officers, and earning its support would mean something for a publication that was just getting started.

But that support wasn’t automatic. I remember going before the membership at a union meeting. There were probably 400 law enforcement officers in the room. I was young the magazine was new. I stood at the microphone and explained what I was trying to build and why I was asking Local 105 to support it. I’ll admit, it was a little intimidating. Tony Williams stood up for me. He told the membership that they should support what I was doing and support the magazine.

They did.

That was one of the first major organizations to put its support behind NJ Corrections Now. Officers began contributing articles. The union supported us through advertising. More importantly, having Local 105 behind the publication gave us credibility at a time when we were still trying to establish ourselves. Tony didn’t have to do that. He believed enough in what I was trying to build to stand in front of his own membership and put his name behind it. I have never forgotten that. I have tremendous respect for Tony Williams, Local 105 and the New Jersey State PBA. Their support became an important part of the beginning of this magazine. Then there was Steve Olimpio.

At the time, Steve was President of Paterson PBA Local 1. I had already begun trying to expand NJ Corrections Now beyond where it started, and someone told me that if I was serious about getting more of law enforcement involved, I needed to go see Steve.

So I did.

I didn’t have an appointment. I walked into the PBA office and introduced myself. Steve was direct and down to earth. I told him what I was trying to build and why I believed officers from different departments should be contributing to the publication. He respected the fact that I had simply walked through the door and asked to see him. He also saw that I was serious about what I was trying to do. He told me he was going to help. And he did. Steve helped bring Paterson officers into the magazine. He helped with articles, he helped with advertising but what he did next became far more important. I went with Steve to the New Jersey State PBA Convention in Atlantic City. One night, we walked through the convention and Steve began introducing me to PBA leaders from throughout the state.

These weren’t casual introductions. He would tell them, in his own way:

“This is my friend Danny. He started a magazine. I want your department involved. If he calls you, treat it like I’m calling you.”

That changed things for me. When I called those people afterward, I wasn’t calling as a stranger anymore. Steve had put his name behind mine. People who had never met me gave me their time because they respected him. Some of the relationships that began that night still exist today. That’s what Steve did for me. He didn’t hand me a list of names. He gave me his credibility and allowed me to build my own relationships from it. Not long afterward, Steve decided to run for Morris County Sheriff.

It was 2010, and he challenged longtime Sheriff Edward Rochford in the Republican primary. We put Steve on the cover. For a young publication, following that campaign was another first. We were there behind the scenes as a law enforcement officer and union leader campaigned for sheriff. The magazine went throughout Morris County, and we experienced a political campaign from a perspective we had never covered before. Steve didn’t win the election. But for me, the campaign was never the most important part of his story. Steve became one of my closest friends and one of my mentors. Seventeen years later, he is still here.

There would eventually be many people who helped The Blue Magazine. Some opened doors, some made introductions. Some stayed for a chapter. Steve stayed and when I think about the people who helped build the foundation of everything that followed, Steve Olimpio is one of them. Then there was John “Johnny” Welsh. I met Johnny during those early stages of the magazine while he was on the job with the Passaic County Sheriff’s Department. Johnny and I were different personalities. I was more of an introvert and Johnny was outgoing. He presented himself well, was always sharp, spoke well and wasn’t afraid to walk into a room and talk to people.

Most importantly, he was a go-getter.

At that point, I was trying to do everything. We needed articles, we needed interviews, we needed departments involved. But we also needed businesses willing to advertise and sponsor the magazine. Without that support, there wasn’t going to be a magazine. I asked Johnny to help me. He took it seriously. There were nights when I would drive past the office at two or three in the morning and see the lights still on. Johnny would be inside, sitting at the computer, researching businesses and looking for people we could introduce to the magazine. Those hours mattered. Johnny helped bring businesses and sponsors into what we were building. He made introductions, developed relationships and helped us create the advertising support that allowed us to keep producing the magazine.

I can say this seventeen years later:

Without Johnny Welsh, I don’t know if The Blue Magazine would have survived. That’s how important his contribution was. And like Steve, Johnny wasn’t someone who was there only at the beginning, he stayed. Today, he remains one of my closest friends. I consider him family a brother. When I think about the people who were there when we were trying to turn an idea into something that could actually survive, Johnny Welsh has to be part of that story. Around that same period, I became friendly with Jim Durkin, a Paterson police officer who served as President of the New Jersey Police Honor Legion.

Jim took a liking to me and supported what we were doing. I remember sitting with him at a diner one day. In the middle of our conversation, Jim pulled out his phone and started making calls. New York. Connecticut. People he knew throughout law enforcement. He probably made five or six calls while we sat there. He would tell them he was sitting with his friend Danny, that I had started a magazine, that he liked what we were doing and that he wanted them to help us. I had experienced something similar with Steve Olimpio in New Jersey. Jim was now introducing me to people outside the state.

Around that time, NJ Corrections Now was expanding and more parts of law enforcement were becoming involved. During one of our conversations, Jim suggested that I consider using the word “Blue” in the name. I liked the idea. A few issues later, NJ Corrections Now became NJ Blue Now. The new name allowed us to continue what we had started while representing the broader law enforcement community that was becoming part of the publication.

Not long afterward, we put Jim on the cover and highlighted the work he was doing with the New Jersey Police Honor Legion. Jim was one of several people during those early years who opened his contacts to us and helped the magazine continue to grow.

BEYOND THE HEADLINES

As the magazine grew, so did the stories we were willing to pursue. One of those stories took us to Chicago. At the time, Chicago was receiving national attention because of an extraordinary level of violence and hundreds of homicides. From the outside, much of the conversation centered on politics, policing and public policy. We wanted to know what people living it were saying. So we sent a team to Chicago. We didn’t announce that we were coming or arrange a polished media tour. We went into the neighborhoods and started talking to people.

We spoke with police officers. We spoke with residents. We spoke with business owners. We spoke with people who lived and worked in communities dealing with the violence every day. And one answer kept coming back.

Gangs.

People talked about rival gangs, shootings and innocent people being caught in violence that had become part of everyday life in some neighborhoods. That didn’t mean politics or public policy had nothing to do with what was happening. Those were legitimate parts of the larger discussion. But standing on the streets of Chicago taught us something that stayed with me. You cannot decide what a story is from hundreds of miles away. You have to go there. You have to talk to the people living it. And sometimes what you hear on the street is different from what you hear in the national conversation. We came back and told that story.

But some of the most important experiences connected to The Blue Magazine never became cover stories. Officers also came to us privately. Some were having problems on the job. Some were struggling personally. Some simply needed somebody they trusted enough to talk to. One officer came to my office during an especially difficult period in his life. We sat together for nearly two hours. I could tell he wasn’t in a good place. We talked about getting help. I was concerned enough that we discussed his weapon. He told me he would take my advice and get help.

But when he left my office, something still didn’t feel right. I called a friend and asked him to check on the officer. I remember telling him:

“Please check on him. I don’t think he’s doing well.”

A few weeks later, I learned that the officer had taken his own life. I have never forgotten that. I have also never forgotten asking myself whether there was something more I could have done. That experience became one of several that changed the way I thought about mental health in law enforcement. Officers had been coming to us because they trusted us. Some needed resources. Some needed help navigating problems on the job. Sometimes they just needed someone to listen. Many found their way through those difficult periods. This officer didn’t. Experiences like his were part of what eventually made me realize that talking about these problems wasn’t enough. We needed to become more involved in helping officers find support.

That belief would eventually become part of something much larger in our work. The magazine also learned that being trusted with access came with another responsibility. We still had to ask the question. One of the clearest examples came when our team interviewed Judge Jeanine Pirro at Fox News headquarters in New York. The interview was going extremely well. But there was one question we knew had to be asked. It concerned a controversial prosecution from her years as a district attorney—a case that had generated strong feelings among members of law enforcement. The interview was nearing its end when I realized the question hadn’t been asked. So I asked it. Her response was immediate.

“That’s a stupid question.”

She said it more than once. I explained why I was asking. There were officers who had strong feelings about that case. If we were going to sit down with Jeanine Pirro and then avoid a question we knew mattered to our law enforcement readers, what credibility would we have? She didn’t like the question. But to her credit, she answered it. Afterward, we continued talking privately. The tension was gone. We discussed the issue further, and she apologized. I walked away from that interview with respect for her. For me, that interview wasn’t memorable because we had an uncomfortable moment at Fox News.

It was memorable because it reinforced something we tried to practice throughout the life of the magazine: Access never meant avoiding the difficult question. Another decision tested that principle in a very different way. We interviewed former NYPD officer Michael Dowd. Dowd’s history was no secret. He had been a corrupt police officer, had been convicted of serious crimes and had served time in federal prison. When we decided to put him on the cover, the reaction was immediate. Some officers were furious.

“How can you put a dirty cop on the cover?”

It was a legitimate question. We weren’t putting Michael Dowd on the cover because we approved of what he had done. We put him there because we believed officers could learn from it. Michael wasn’t trying to tell us that he had been wrongly accused or pretend his past didn’t exist. He talked about the decisions he made, the corruption he became involved in and the consequences that followed.

His message to officers was simple:

Don’t do what I did. Don’t go down this road. Look where it leads. The reaction to the story was divided. Some officers hated it. Others understood exactly why we had done it.

Over time, I saw something else.

There were officers going through difficult periods who connected with Michael. Sometimes a person struggling with his own mistakes will talk to someone who has made serious mistakes himself before he will talk to someone he believes won’t understand him. Michael became one of those people. I don’t defend what Michael Dowd did as a police officer. I never have. He paid the price for those decisions. But I also believe that a person who has done wrong can use his mistakes to keep someone else from making the same ones. Today, Michael and I are friends. We don’t agree about everything, and friendship doesn’t erase his past.

But when we have called him to help, including through our charitable work and with officers who were struggling, he has been there. Sometimes you have to get closer to a story before you understand it. And sometimes the story you find isn’t the one you expected. There is another person who belongs in this part of the story because so much of the journalism The Blue Magazine eventually produced has his fingerprints on it.

George Beck.

George joined the magazine while serving as a police officer in Palisades Park. But George brought something else with him. He was a writer, an educator and a serious student of history and criminal justice. He would earn his Ph.D. in History and Culture from Drew University and become an accomplished author. When George became deeply involved with the editorial side of the magazine, he raised the standard. He wasn’t afraid to tell me when something wasn’t good enough. That included our own work. As publisher, I didn’t always agree with my Editor-in-Chief.

We had editorial meetings where we disagreed about stories, covers and the direction of an issue. Sometimes I won. Sometimes George won. Sometimes neither one of us was happy. That’s how it should have been. George had his own opinions and his own editorial standards. He wasn’t there to tell me what I wanted to hear. His responsibility was to make the journalism better. And he did. George helped build and organize an editorial team that eventually included law enforcement officers, chiefs, sheriffs, authors and contributors from across the country.

He worked with officers who had something important to say but weren’t professional writers. He helped them develop their voices, improve their writing and become contributors to a national publication. Some continued writing long after their first article. As the journalism improved, so did the opportunities in front of us. When we sat across from national law enforcement figures and public officials, we had an editorial team capable of conducting the interview and producing an article worthy of the access we had been given.

George grew alongside the magazine.

I watched him rise through the ranks of the Palisades Park Police Department while continuing to help lead our publication. Years after joining us as a police officer and writer, George would become Chief of Police in Palisades Park. And the same George Beck who helped strengthen our journalism would eventually walk into the White House as one of our senior journalists and interview Tom Homan. He would also serve as the lead journalist when The Blue Magazine interviewed President Donald J. Trump. That means something to me.

Not simply because George became a police chief. Not simply because The Blue Magazine eventually reached people and places we never imagined reaching when we started. Because we watched each other grow. George became one of my closest friends and someone I consider a brother. More importantly for the history of this publication, he helped give The Blue Magazine the editorial standard it needed to become a serious national law enforcement publication.

When bigger doors began opening, we were ready to walk through them. By 2014, The Blue Magazine was beginning another important chapter. At the time, we were still NJ Blue Now, and for one particular issue we expanded our distribution into New York as well as New Jersey. The person who brought Commissioner Bernard Kerik and me together was someone who had already played an important role in the magazine’s beginning:

Steve Olimpio. Steve believed Comish and I needed to meet. He knew both of us. He understood what I was trying to build with the magazine, and he believed there was a connection worth making. So Steve made the introduction. Comish didn’t know me, and I didn’t know him. We sat down at his home in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey. What I expected to be a meeting turned into almost an entire day together. We spent close to three hours talking in his office. Afterward, we went to lunch and continued talking for another couple of hours.

Comish told me his story. And there was an immediate connection I understood. Long before he became New York City’s Police Commissioner, Comish had served with the Passaic County Sheriff’s Office, the same department where I would later serve. He had been a training officer, commanded special operations units and eventually became Warden of the Passaic County Jail. In 1986, he left New Jersey and joined the NYPD. His career took him places few people in law enforcement would ever experience. He worked major narcotics investigations with the NYPD. He later joined the New York City Department of Correction, eventually becoming its commissioner. Then, in 2000, Mayor Rudy Giuliani appointed him the 40th Police Commissioner of the City of New York.

A year later came September 11, 2001.

Comish was the Police Commissioner of New York City when America was attacked. But sitting in his office that day in 2014, I wasn’t interested only in the résumé. I wanted to know about the fall, too. We talked about the investigations, the charges, his mistakes and prison. Comish also explained his own views about the politics surrounding what had happened to him.

I listened.

He had been one of the most recognizable law enforcement leaders in America. Then he became a convicted felon and went to federal prison. He had paid a tremendous price. And now he wanted back into the law enforcement community. That wasn’t necessarily going to be easy. There were people in the profession who wanted nothing to do with him. But after spending those hours with Comish, I saw something else. I saw one of the most knowledgeable law enforcement people I had ever met. He understood policing. He understood leadership. He understood national security and international security. And he still had something to contribute.

Comish wasn’t asking me to pretend his mistakes hadn’t happened. He wanted an opportunity to tell his story, including what had gone wrong, and to use what he had experienced to educate other people in the profession. I believed he deserved that opportunity.

So I told him:

We’re putting you on the cover. And we did. The reaction was divided. Some officers were angry that we would put Commissioner Kerik on the cover after he had been convicted and sent to prison. Others respected the decision and wanted to hear what he had to say.

That was fine with me. The purpose of the cover wasn’t to tell readers what to think about Commissioner Kerik. It was to let them hear him and decide for themselves. What none of us knew at the time was that the cover would become the beginning of something much bigger. Comish wanted an opportunity to reconnect with the profession he loved. The magazine gave him a platform to begin telling his story again. And Comish gave something back. He helped us. What started as an interview became a friendship. Then it became a partnership. Comish began advising me and eventually became Chief Advisor to The Blue Magazine.

He stood on our stages as Master of Ceremonies in front of hundreds of officers. He gave me advice privately. He challenged me. He educated me. And he began opening doors. His relationships and credibility introduced The Blue Magazine to people at levels of government, law enforcement and national security that would have been extremely difficult for us to reach on our own. But Comish’s importance to me was never simply about who he knew. It was about what he knew—and the fact that he was willing to share it.

He became one of my mentors, one of my closest friends and one of the most important advisors The Blue Magazine ever had. Comish’s involvement with The Blue Magazine didn’t end with an advisory title. He showed up. For years, he served as Master of Ceremonies at our events, standing before hundreds of law enforcement officers and helping us recognize people from across the profession. But some of his most important contributions happened away from the stage. Comish became someone I could call.

When I had a question, I called him.

When the magazine was considering a major interview or story, I could ask for his perspective. When there was someone we believed our readers needed to hear from, Comish often knew how to get us into the room. And when he believed in an introduction, his name carried weight. That became increasingly important as The Blue Magazine expanded nationally. Through Comish, relationships developed with people we once would have known only from television, newspapers or national headlines. One of those relationships was with Rudy Giuliani. Comish and Rudy shared a long history going back to their years in New York City government. That relationship eventually helped put The Blue Magazine inside Giuliani’s home for an interview.

We weren’t standing at a press conference trying to get a question in. We were sitting with him and having a real conversation. Comish also introduced us to Tom Homan. That introduction developed into a relationship with someone who would become an important voice in the magazine and a friend of what we were doing. Years later, members of The Blue Magazine team would walk into the White House and interview Homan there. And then came one of the biggest interviews in the history of The Blue Magazine.

Donald J. Trump.

That interview actually began with one of our own. Rick Vanderklok, a retired New Jersey law enforcement officer and a member of The Blue Magazine team, and I were having a meeting. I mentioned that I wanted to interview former President Trump at some point. Rick looked at me and said, essentially:

“Why don’t we do it now?”

It was a simple question.

But he was right. Why wait? I called Comish.

I said:

“Comish, why don’t we interview the President now?” He liked the idea. An hour or two later, my phone rang.

It was Comish.

“Danny, we got the interview.”

He gave me the date. What none of us could have anticipated was what that date would become. The interview was scheduled for the same day President Trump would travel to New York for his arraignment. By the time that morning arrived, the entire country was watching. Television crews were everywhere. Every major news organization was following his movements. I remember wondering whether the interview would still happen.

It did.

President Trump kept his commitment to The Blue Magazine. George Beck led the interview alongside Commissioner Kerik. Also there with us were John Welsh, Rick Vanderklok and my daughter, Alyssa Del Valle. For nearly 50 minutes, President Trump answered our questions on a morning when he had every reason in the world to cancel. That mattered to me. Not simply because The Blue Magazine had interviewed a former President of the United States. It mattered because of how it happened. The idea came from Rick Vanderklok, one of our own. I made the call to Comish.

Comish made the call that opened the door. George Beck and our editorial team were prepared to conduct the interview. And President Trump kept his word. That moment represented what The Blue Magazine had become. It wasn’t one person. It was the team. And in many ways, Comish’s role reminded me of something that had been happening since the earliest days of the magazine. Tony Williams had stood before his own union membership and put his credibility behind me when very few people knew who I was.

Steve Olimpio had walked me through the New Jersey State PBA Convention, introducing me to union leaders and telling them that if I called, they should treat it as though the call were coming from him. Jim Durkin had sat across from me at a diner, picked up his phone and started calling law enforcement contacts on my behalf. Years later, it was Steve again who believed Comish and I needed to know each other. And now Comish was doing something similar on a national level.

That was one of the greatest lessons this magazine taught me about relationships. An introduction can get you through a door. What you do after you walk through it determines whether that door stays open. Comish didn’t simply give us telephone numbers. He put his credibility behind us. But those introductions only mattered because we were prepared when the opportunities came. George Beck and our editorial team had built the journalistic standard. Our writers had done the work. Our team had built the publication. Comish helped give that work access.

And once the door opened, it was our responsibility to prove we belonged there. Over the years, Comish remained part of The Blue Magazine through some of its biggest moments. He advised us. He stood on our stages. He made introductions. He shared what he knew.

But eventually, the former New York City Police Commissioner I first met at his home in Franklin Lakes wasn’t Commissioner Kerik to me anymore. He was Comish, my mentor, my advisor and my friend. When Comish died on May 29, 2025, I didn’t simply lose a former New York City Police Commissioner or the Chief Advisor to The Blue Magazine.

I lost my friend.

And seventeen years after this magazine began, I can say without hesitation that some of the biggest moments in its history would not have happened without him.

THE WHITE HOUSE

For the first time in the history of The Blue Magazine, our team was going inside the White House. We were there to interview United States Border Czar Tom Homan. Comish had originally introduced us to Tom, and over the years that relationship had grown. Now Tom was serving in the White House, working directly in President Donald Trump’s administration on border security and immigration enforcement. And we weren’t going there simply because Tom Homan had an important title. We were going because there were important questions to ask. Immigration enforcement and ICE had become some of the most controversial issues in the country.

ICE agents were being portrayed by some politicians, activists and media coverage as an enemy of immigrant communities. At the same time, the administration and federal law enforcement argued that ICE officers were doing their jobs enforcing federal immigration laws and targeting people who were in the country illegally, including criminal offenders. There were strong opinions on every side. Our responsibility wasn’t to decide for readers which side they should believe. Our responsibility was to go directly to the person helping lead that mission and ask him.

That’s why the interview with Tom mattered.

We wanted him to explain what ICE was actually doing, why the administration believed those enforcement operations were necessary, what officers were encountering on the ground, and what he believed the public was getting wrong about their mission. Whether someone agreed with the administration’s policies or disagreed with them, those were questions worth asking. And Tom answered them. The team that traveled to Washington included George Beck, Steve Olimpio, Holly Finley, Jordan Beck, Chris Bonilla and me. George would lead the interview.

We arrived at the White House and began going through security. That’s where I ran into a problem. I didn’t have a REAL ID. They weren’t letting me in.

I was disappointed.

Of course I wanted to walk through those gates with everybody else. I had spent years helping build the magazine, and this was the first time our team was going inside the White House. But there was an interview to do. The team didn’t need to miss that opportunity because I couldn’t get through security.

So they went in.

And I stayed outside. George Beck, Steve Olimpio, Holly Finley, Jordan Beck and Chris Bonilla walked into the White House representing The Blue Magazine. Inside, George led the interview with Tom Homan. They didn’t go there for a photo opportunity. They went there to do journalism. The conversation addressed immigration enforcement, ICE, border security and the controversy surrounding the administration’s policies. Tom had the opportunity to explain the mission in his own words and respond directly to the criticism surrounding it. That was important to us. The Blue Magazine had never been interested in interviewing only people everyone agreed with or asking only questions that made everyone comfortable.

We wanted people to hear directly from the person making the decisions and then make up their own minds. The interview was completed.

We produced the video.

And Tom Homan went on the cover of The Blue Magazine. For our team, it was a significant accomplishment. While I was outside, my phone rang.

It was Holly.

She told me Tom wanted to speak with me. Then Tom got on the phone. He told me that when he finished at the White House, he wanted me to meet him for lunch. He gave me the location.

And he kept his word. Afterward, Tom and I met at the restaurant. His Secret Service protection was nearby, but the lunch itself was private. We talked about law enforcement, we talked about national security. We talked about ICE, border enforcement and what was happening across the country. It gave me another opportunity to hear directly from him, away from cameras and away from an official interview. But there was something else about that lunch that stayed with me. Tom didn’t forget I was outside.

He was serving in one of the most demanding and controversial positions in the federal government. He had no obligation to make that call or spend part of his afternoon having lunch with me.

He did it anyway. That told me something about his character.

That’s why today I consider Tom more than someone The Blue Magazine interviewed. I consider him a friend and a patriot who continues to serve his country. And when I think about that day, I don’t think first about the fact that I couldn’t get into the White House. I think about the fact that The Blue Magazine did. Our team walked through those gates.

They asked the questions.

They completed the interview. We published the story, produced the video and put United States Border Czar Tom Homan on the cover.

The assignment was accomplished. And that’s what mattered.

PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP

The Blue Magazine’s history with President Donald J. Trump began years before we interviewed him. In 2020, President Trump was running for reelection. At the time, Comish came to me with an idea. He believed President Trump was taking heavy criticism nationally and that his support for law enforcement was not receiving the same attention. Comish believed the men and women in our profession should know where the President stood on the issues affecting them.

He told me we should do something.

I agreed.

We made our position unmistakable. Our cover said it plainly: “BLUE FOR TRUMP.” We knew the decision would bring criticism.

And it did.

Donald Trump was one of the most polarizing political figures in America. Some people did not believe a law enforcement publication should publicly support a candidate for President. We made the decision anyway. We believed President Trump’s positions on policing, public safety and support for law enforcement were important to the profession we represented. Comish helped orchestrate that 2020 cover, and I trusted his judgment. President Trump ultimately lost the election. But that was not the end of our history with him. Three years later, in 2023, Donald Trump would appear on the cover of The Blue Magazine again. This time, the circumstances were completely different.

The idea for the interview began during a meeting with Rick Vanderklok, a retired New Jersey law enforcement officer and member of The Blue Magazine team.

I mentioned that I wanted to interview President Trump. Rick asked a simple question:

“Why don’t we do it now?”

He was right. I called Comish. I asked him if we could interview President Trump.

Comish liked the idea. An hour or two later, he called me back. “Danny, we got the interview.” Once again, Comish had opened a door for the magazine. Then something happened that none of us could have planned. The date we had been given became the same day President Trump was scheduled to travel to New York for his arraignment. The entire country was watching. Every major news organization was following his movements. Under those circumstances, President Trump could easily have canceled our interview. Nobody on our team would have questioned it. He didn’t.

He kept his commitment. George Beck led the interview alongside Comish. Also there with us were John Welsh, Rick Vanderklok and my daughter, Alyssa Del Valle. For nearly 50 minutes, President Trump gave The Blue Magazine his time and answered our questions before continuing with one of the most closely watched days of his life. That stayed with me. Not because we agreed with every decision Donald Trump had ever made. Not because everyone reading our magazine agreed with him. They didn’t.

It stayed with me because when the pressure was at its highest and he had every reason to cancel, he remembered his commitment to us. He kept his word.

The 2020 and 2023 covers tell two different parts of our history with President Trump. In 2020, we publicly took a position. “BLUE FOR TRUMP.” We believed his record and positions on law enforcement deserved our support, and we accepted the criticism that came with making that decision. In 2023, we did something different. We interviewed him. We gave our readers an opportunity to hear directly from him during one of the most consequential moments of his political and personal life. The first cover showed where we stood.

The second documented an interview we had earned. Years later, President Trump would complete one of the most extraordinary political comebacks in American history and return to the White House. People will continue to debate Donald Trump. That is politics. Our history with him is part of the record of The Blue Magazine.

We supported him publicly in 2020. We interviewed him in 2023 and on a morning when the eyes of the country were on him and he could easily have walked away from our interview, President Donald J. Trump kept his commitment to The Blue Magazine.

That is the part of the story I will always remember.

ACROSS THE AISLE

As The Blue Magazine grew, our interviews were never going to be limited to people who shared the same politics. We had interviewed some of the most prominent conservative voices in the country. We had publicly supported President Donald J. Trump. But if we were going to call ourselves The Independent Voice of Law Enforcement, independence had to mean something. That meant being willing to sit across from leaders on the other side of the political aisle and ask them the same direct questions.

One of those interviews took us to New York City Hall to sit down with Mayor Eric Adams. Adams brought a perspective few mayors could claim. Before entering politics, he had spent more than two decades as an NYPD officer. At the time of our interview, morale within the NYPD was a serious concern. Officers were dealing with hostility and disrespect on the streets, and many questioned whether the political leadership of New York City truly supported the men and women expected to police it. Those were the questions we wanted answered.

Holly Finley and junior journalist Alyssa Del Valle conducted the interview, with Christian Bonilla and members of The Blue Magazine team there. They asked Mayor Adams directly about the NYPD, officer morale, public safety and whether the officers working the streets of New York could count on the support of City Hall. The timing also placed another difficult subject directly in front of us. Conservative activist Charlie Kirk had just been assassinated while speaking at a college event in Utah. Political violence was no longer an abstract subject. Mayor Adams was asked about the danger facing public officials and whether, in the political climate of the country, he worried about his own safety.

He answered the questions.

The interview was productive, substantive and respectful and Mayor Adams went on the cover. Another interview took us across the Hudson River to New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy. Governor Murphy’s administration had made some of the most consequential decisions affecting New Jersey during the COVID-19 pandemic. Those decisions were controversial. Mandates and restrictions had affected officers, their families, their departments and the communities they served. Within law enforcement, there were strong opinions about the Governor’s handling of COVID and broader questions about whether his administration truly supported the profession.

We wanted him to answer those questions himself. Holly Finley and Paterson Police Officer Catherine Angel sat down with Governor Murphy. They asked him about COVID. They asked him about the mandates. They asked him about public safety and the concerns coming from members of law enforcement.

Governor Murphy knew he wasn’t sitting down for a public-relations interview. He answered the questions respectfully and we put him on the cover, too.

Those two covers mattered.

Not because Eric Adams and Phil Murphy were Democrats. And not because The Blue Magazine agreed with everything either man had done. They mattered because our readers deserved the opportunity to hear directly from the elected officials whose decisions affected their profession. Our job wasn’t to protect an elected official from a difficult question. It wasn’t to attack one because of the letter next to his name. It was to ask the questions law enforcement wanted answered and let the reader decide what to think about the answers.

There was something else happening in those interviews that made me equally proud. The people asking the questions came from our own team.

Holly Finley.

Catherine Angel.

Alyssa Del Valle.

Members of a publication whose editorial standard George Beck had spent years developing were now sitting across from governors and mayors and conducting serious interviews on behalf of the law enforcement community.

That was growth. The magazine had grown and so had the people inside it. Access didn’t determine our questions. The questions came from the profession we represented.

A COP’S COP

DETECTIVE STEVEN D. McDONALD

March 1, 1957 – January 10, 2017

Not every cover featured a politician or national figure. Some covers were about honoring the profession itself.

Detective Steven McDonald was one of them.

In 1986, Steven was shot three times while working as an NYPD officer in Central Park. The shooting left him paralyzed. What he did afterward became an important part of his legacy. Steven publicly forgave the young man who shot him. For the next three decades, he remained a powerful presence in law enforcement, speaking about faith, forgiveness and peace while continuing to represent the NYPD and the profession around the country. That was the kind of story The Blue Magazine was created to tell. I first got to know Steven through the Father Mychal Judge 9/11 Walk of Remembrance in Manhattan, an event we participated in year after year.

The walk honored Father Mychal Judge, the FDNY chaplain who was killed on September 11, and Steven was one of the people who helped keep that remembrance alive. Eventually, we had the privilege of putting Steven on the cover of The Blue Magazine. We wanted to recognize a cop who had sacrificed tremendously and then spent decades continuing to give back to the profession. One of the last times I spent time with Steven was at a dinner in New York that we helped hold in his honor with another organization. I am grateful we had the opportunity to honor him while he was still here.

Steven died on January 10, 2017, at the age of 59, more than 30 years after the shooting that changed his life. His legacy continued through his family. His son, Conor, followed his father into the NYPD. Steven McDonald was a cop’s cop. The Blue Magazine was built in part to make sure officers like him and what they gave to this profession were never forgotten.

We were proud to put him on our cover.

OLD VALUES. NEW TIMES. THE BLUEPRINT.

SHERIFF EDWIN ENGLEHARDT

September 29, 1929 – April 13, 2023

Long before The Blue Magazine existed, Sheriff Edwin Englehardt gave me the opportunity to begin my career in law enforcement with the Passaic County Sheriff’s Department. Years later, in 2017, I had an opportunity to sit down with him again. By then, he had been retired for years. But I wasn’t interested in simply interviewing him about the past. I wanted his blueprint.

The cover said exactly what we were trying to accomplish:

OLD VALUES. NEW TIMES.

THE BLUEPRINT.

That wasn’t simply a cover line. It was the reason for the interview. Sheriff Englehardt had led the Passaic County Sheriff’s Department during a different era, and I wanted him to explain how he had done it. One thing I remembered about Sheriff Englehardt was the respect he commanded. His officers respected him. Other law-enforcement leaders respected him. And the political leaders whose decisions affected his department respected him. That mattered. A sheriff doesn’t operate in isolation. A department needs a budget. It needs officers, equipment and resources.

Many of those decisions require dealing with elected officials. Sheriff Englehardt understood that relationship. He knew how to work with political leaders, fight for what his department needed and command enough respect that when he made the case for his officers and his agency, people listened. He understood politics. But politics didn’t define his leadership. That was what I wanted him to explain.

How did he deal with politicians? How did he secure the resources his department needed? How did he command respect? How did he stand behind his officers? And what lessons from his generation of leadership still applied in 2017?

Sheriff Englehardt was direct.

He believed leaders were supposed to lead. He had little patience for law-enforcement executives who surrendered their authority simply to satisfy political or public pressure. His message was clear:

A leader who wears the badge should never be ashamed to stand behind it and his message wasn’t limited to chiefs and sheriffs. It applied to the officer working the street. Stand up for yourself.Stand behind the badge you earned. Do your job with integrity, but never allow yourself to be intimidated, harassed or pressured into believing that serving in law enforcement is something you should apologize for. To Sheriff Englehardt, leadership meant backing your people when they were right, fighting for the resources they needed and having the courage to withstand pressure when it came.

That was the blueprint.

Times change.

Departments change.

Communities change.

But some principles of leadership shouldn’t disappear simply because the times have changed. There was also a personal history behind that cover. Sheriff Englehardt hadn’t simply given me my first opportunity in law enforcement and disappeared from my life, he stayed. He became one of my mentors and when The Blue Magazine came along, he became an advisor to the magazine. Throughout the years, he remained someone I could turn to. He gave me advice. He opened doors for me.

He looked out for me, just as he had done for so many others in the profession. That made the 2017 cover full circle. Years earlier, Sheriff Englehardt had given me an opportunity to serve. Now I had an opportunity to honor him. Putting him on the cover remains one of the accomplishments I am most proud of in the history of The Blue Magazine. When I gave Sheriff Englehardt the finished magazine, he became emotional. He told me it was one of the greatest gifts he had ever received. He never expected that, so many years after leaving office, he would find himself on the cover of a law-enforcement magazine with an opportunity to put his voice and his lessons before another generation.

That moment meant a great deal to me. This was a man who had opened a door for me, mentored me and remained part of my life. Now, through The Blue Magazine, I had an opportunity to do something for him. Sheriff Englehardt died on April 13, 2023, at the age of 93. Law enforcement lost a respected former sheriff and mentor.

The Blue Magazine lost an advisor and I lost a friend and one of my mentors. But we had his words, we had the interview. And we had preserved his blueprint. OLD VALUES. NEW TIMES. THE BLUEPRINT.