Bernard Kenny

Senate Majority Leader Bernard Kenny

Update: The request to the state police to assign a trooper to Sen. Kenny was made by Kathleen Crotty in her capacity as Executive Director of the Senate Democratic Office, not from the Joint Management Commission, as was originally reported. Crotty is acting chair of the JMC.

If police know what happened to state Sen. Bernard Kenny, they’re not saying. But enough scenarios exist to warrant providing him with protection from a state trooper.

The authorization to assign a trooper to Kenny was given by Captain James O’Neil, who heads up the State Government Security Bureau. It was requested by Kathleen Crotty, Executive Director of the Senate Democratic Office and Acting Chair of the Capitol Joint Management Commission.

Kenny was found by police disoriented and bleeding on a curb with what turned out to be extensive injuries. Although Kenny at first said that he tripped while jogging, police are focusing on the case as a hit-and-run.

Something smells fishy at the State House Joint Management Commission, which apparently authorized a State Trooper to drive Senate Majority Leader Bernard Kenny back and forth from Trenton until his term expires next month.

The JMC seems to believe that Kenny is in need of police protection after he was seriously injured outside his Hoboken home last July. Kenny initially told police he tripped and fell on a pothole while out for an early morning jog. Later, he changed his story, suggesting that he was the victim of a hit-and-run driver. Around Hudson County, there is no shortage of rumors about who may have hit Kenny, and why.

There are not many sure things in New Jersey politics, but here’s one: you haven’t heard that last of Bernard Kenny.  The Senate Majority Leader, who decided to retire rather than fight Brian Stack in a Democratic primary (or challenge Jerramiah Healy to keep his Hudson County Democratic Chairmanship), continues to be the topic of considerable mystery these days as Democrats from Hudson County – and beyond – wonder what really happened on the morning of July 18.  That mind of speculation won’t go away, even after Kenny leaves office in a few weeks.

"What matters to me is that I'm alive - that I'll have time with my kids and that I'll still be able to do things in my life.": State Sen. Bernard Kenny, to the Jersey JournalSenate Majority Leader Bernard Kenny says he was hit by a car, according to the Jersey Journal Political Insider column, which had the first interview with the Hudson County Democrat since his body "was discovered crumpled and bloody" on a Hoboken street during the early hours of July 18. Kenny called the Jersey Journal reporter, and the column is a must-read. Kenny says he was not jogging, but rather running late for a meeting. He says he stepped between two cars, fell, and got hit when another vehicle turned, not seeing him on the ground.

Read the Jersey Journal column:

Rob Tornoe

Nobody’s sure what happened to State Sen. Bernard Kenny yesterday morning.

Doctors at Jersey City Medical Center have told police that the state Senator’s injuries are not consistent with tripping in a pothole, according to the Jersey Journal. Hudson County Posecutor Edward DeFazio told the newspaper that Kenny’s injuries more closely resemble those suffered from being hit by a car.

The family of Sen. Kenny authorized the following statement on his condition.

The Jersey Journal is reporting that Senate Majority Leader Bernard Kenny was badly hurt earlier today when he was struck by a car in Hoboken. Update: a later Jersey Journal report indicates that Kenny told Police he tripped on a pothole shortly before 7AM today.

But Jim Griffin, a spokesman for the Senate Democrats, would not confirm that Kenny was hit by a car, saying that he may have just tripped, and was disoriented after his fall.

Kenny's injuries are not life threatening, Griffin said. A Hoboken city spokesman told the nespaper that the veteran Senator broke his femur and collarbone and remains in fair condition at Jersey City Medical Center.

“I can’t go on, I’ll go on,” wrote Samuel Beckett, a slogan the GOP would have likely found heartening Thursday, but searching for a metaphor amid the archives of absurdist 20th century drama to apply to the state budget process, Republican Sen. Leonard Lance instead selected Beckett’s most famous – and disturbing - play.

Was it a slap or a tap? 

Did Senate Majority Leader Bernard Kenny hit a Hoboken official in the face yesterday, or was he just being playful?
 
City Councilman Michael Russo says that it was a slap, and that it hurt.  But unless veteran firefighter Tom Molta speaks up, the world may never know.

Russo claims he was having a casual, non-political conversation with Molta when the 60-year-old Kenny came running up to them, thinking they were talking politics.