Mike, my comment was not meant to disparage all police officers. I'm the last person to bash a cop. So please accept my apology.
Here in NJ, the fire dept is in charge of all accident scenes, until the victim(s) and fire /hazmat dangers has been removed, and the scene stabilized. It is State law. I have went head to head numerous times with the police on who runs the scene, and what to do at an incident. Not every cop, but a few of them, especially the younger guys. They expect the fire fighters to direct traffic for them while they oversee the scene. BS!! At one serious accidenton a major busy hwy, I wanted two lanes shut down and traffic diverted, because the traffic was too close to where we where working on a victim. One of my men was almost run down. The officer refused. Said its his road, he will make the decision. I was adamant about it. He got in my face threatened to lock me up. I stayed calm, walked to my vehicle, got on the phone with the police chief. Four mins later the road was being shut down. After the scene was cleaned up, he came over and apologized.
One of the things I expect them to do is some crowd control, not letting onlookers too close to the scene. Which Ive encountered alot. I look for the officers and they are stannding off by there cars talking and laughing.
Like I said the vast majority are good , but a few just really pi$$ed me off.