PageSix.com

INJURED COP FUMES AT HILLARY

By RICHARD JOHNSON with Paula Froelich and Chris Wilson

SEN. Hillary Clinton has never been a favorite of rank-and-file New York cops, but it is certain she has now lost the vote of Westchester County Police Officer Ernest Dymond.

Dymond, a 19-year veteran of the force, has been out of work for more than two weeks after he was injured while trying to stop a black van carrying Clinton from blasting through a security checkpoint at Westchester County Airport on Oct. 14.

Dymond was one of three uniformed cops manning the sensitive gateway at the White Plains airport - which is on high alert because of terror risks - when a Ford conversion van carrying Clinton and her Secret Service detail rolled toward them at about 35 mph.

After her Secret Service driver drove through the checkpoint, Dymond yelled for it stop, and injured his shoulder while banging on the side of the van. After the vehicle finally stopped about 300 feet past the checkpoint, Dymond described Clinton's driver as "quite agitated" when the cop asked him for identification.

"I didn't know if we had a terrorist," Dymond, 47, told the Washington Times, "and once I found out who he was, I was even more agitated that he, of all people, should have known."

Clinton, who is said to have been talking on her cell phone while the van drove toward her private plane, did not talk to Dymond, who briefly checked into St. Agnes Hospital in White Plains.

A Secret Service spokesman said there was "a little confusion" about whether Clinton's motorcade should stop or not, claiming that some cops were waving the van through.

Clinton's spokeswoman told PAGE SIX: "The local police have said that she has nothing to do with this, and the Secret Service has made clear that some of the local police waved her through."

While her handlers are dismissing it as a non-story, some Hillary-haters are grumbling about a "Vangate" cover-up, if you will. The incident got more play in the Washington Times than in any other news outlet.

Dymond, who has been ordered not to give any more interviews about the incident, recently told conservative Web site newsmax.com that no one from the senator's office has called to apologize to him.

Clinton's carelessness isn't likely to help her chilly relations with New York's Finest. Just days after her run-in with Dymond, she was heckled by booing cops and firefighters when she took the stage at the star-studded Concert for New York Oct. 20 at the Garden.

-- Anonymous, October 31, 2001