"staties" = 'state police officers'

[Mark Mandel]

>From yesterday's (2001-8-6) _MetroWest Daily News_ (suburban Boston),
credited to Rich Thompson of the Boston _Herald_, section B, p. 2, article
"Wild chase winds through Wellesley" [last paragraph, quoting a high-school
senior who was working at the gas station on the opposite corner]:

     "There were staties (state police), cops from Wellesley and they were
all chasing this guy. We don't get that kind of excitement around here very
often."

The quotation marks and parenthesized gloss are in the original.

This expression is new to my wife and me. Anyone else heard it?

-- Mark A. Mandel