Jersey City: A mayor's struggle against crime surge
By Abiodun Giwa
Mayor Steven Fulop of Jersey City (Courtesy: Fulop's official website)
Sexual assaults' number in Jersey City increased to 50 in the first six months of 2015, compared to 19 in the same period of 2014, police crime statistics says.
But the city's Public Safety Director, James Shea, said that the city had 24 sexual assaults between January and June 2015, published in the Jersey Journal edition of July 22, 2015.
Shea gave the number that conflicted with the police number, when he briefed the media about his observation of crime reduction in the city.
"Police statistics are reported crimes in the process of being investigated. They have not been turned over to the Hudson County Prosecutor's office. I assume that Shea may have used the number from the prosecutor's office," Bill O'Donnell of the city's Public Safety Department, said.
Mark Sojak of the sexual assault special victims' section in the Hudson County Prosecutor's office said that his office doesn't handle statistics. And Shea and police chief, Philip Zacche, could not be reached for comment.
"I would point out that crime is actually down since 2013 in almost every category." This was all that Ryan Jacobs, the press secretary in the mayor's office sent via an email response.
Police record shows that homicides decreased from 39 in 2012 to 18 in 2013. It increased from 18 in 2013 to 22 in 2014. Sexual assaults decreased from 43 in 2012 to 38 in 2013 and decreased further to 34 in 2014. But in 2015, it had increased to 71 by September.
Statistics show that the city has been witnessing gradual decrease in Grand Larceny, Burglary, Robbery and Aggravated Assault since 2013. However, residents still talk about insecurity amid the city's continuous struggle with homicides and sexual assaults. And they talk about the murder of Darcel Rivers, the son of the city's fire chief, Darren Rivers, on June 4, 2015, in the Martin Luther King Jr. Drive neighborhood.
But the city's Public Safety Director, James Shea, said that the city had 24 sexual assaults between January and June 2015, published in the Jersey Journal edition of July 22, 2015.
Shea gave the number that conflicted with the police number, when he briefed the media about his observation of crime reduction in the city.
"Police statistics are reported crimes in the process of being investigated. They have not been turned over to the Hudson County Prosecutor's office. I assume that Shea may have used the number from the prosecutor's office," Bill O'Donnell of the city's Public Safety Department, said.
Mark Sojak of the sexual assault special victims' section in the Hudson County Prosecutor's office said that his office doesn't handle statistics. And Shea and police chief, Philip Zacche, could not be reached for comment.
"I would point out that crime is actually down since 2013 in almost every category." This was all that Ryan Jacobs, the press secretary in the mayor's office sent via an email response.
Police record shows that homicides decreased from 39 in 2012 to 18 in 2013. It increased from 18 in 2013 to 22 in 2014. Sexual assaults decreased from 43 in 2012 to 38 in 2013 and decreased further to 34 in 2014. But in 2015, it had increased to 71 by September.
Statistics show that the city has been witnessing gradual decrease in Grand Larceny, Burglary, Robbery and Aggravated Assault since 2013. However, residents still talk about insecurity amid the city's continuous struggle with homicides and sexual assaults. And they talk about the murder of Darcel Rivers, the son of the city's fire chief, Darren Rivers, on June 4, 2015, in the Martin Luther King Jr. Drive neighborhood.
Two major areas of concern are homicide and sexual assault. Though, their numbers are low, their decreasing and increasing is the opposite of other categories of crime in the statistics.
Fulop's first moves
Prior to his assumption of office, Mayor Steven Fulop promised residents in the Martin Luther King Jr. Drive neighborhood - an area regarded as the home to drugs and crime in the city - that he would be coming to live in the neighborhood to show his desire towards ending crime wave and drugs there, and to convince residents about the seriousness of his intention.
“It’s a strong signal, is really what I think. I want to have a commitment to the area beyond just saying it,” the mayor said in a Jersey Journal interview in 2013, shortly after his election.
By June 2015, news report said that the mayor had bought a house in the Heights and that he would no longer be moving to the MLK Jr. Drive neighborhood. Many residents said that increasing crime rate in the neighborhood may have caused the mayor's change of mind.
"The neighborhood needs to be cleaned up before the mayor can come and live here. But the cleaning up has been too slow," Marshall Sluggard, owner of Sluggos Laundromat on the MLK Drive and Botswick Avenue, said. He added that the mayor wants to be comfortable and be alive.
"Where the mayor chooses to live does not matter to me. What matters to me is the provision the mayor is making available for me to keep the neighborhood safe," Timothy Lockwood, South District Commander of Jersey City Police said, and he pointed at police officers on foot patrol, as part of the provisions he attributed to the mayor.
Secondly, Mayor Fulop merged the police and the fire departments, as part of his decisions toward achieving efficiency in crime reduction.
"The merger has streamlined communication for the three services: The police, the fire and the emergency services that are now under the Public Safety Department." To be sincere, as a police officer, I cannot lead fire operation and nor can a fire officer lead police operation," Lockwood said about the merger. He did not say whether the merger had reduced crime.
However, an anonymous staff of the Jersey City Employment and Training Program, JCETP, who only agreed to speak under condition that he be identified as Mike, said that if police and fire departments merger had achieved the objective of efficiency in crime reduction, there would have been no need for the recent introduction of police foot patrol.
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Murder mystery and police patrol
The murder of Darcel Rivers - the son of the city's fire chief, the mayor's purchase of a house in the Heights - instead of the MLK Jr. Drive neighborhood - and the emergence of police foot patrol in the neighborhood, are all parts of widespread discussions among residents in the MLK Drive neighborhood.
Darren Rivers' remarks at his son's funeral, "I just hope the tragedy can bring back the city that made me, the city that has taken care of me all my life. We need whatever it takes to bring the city back. Please, don't allow my son's death to be in vain," observers say, capture the current mood in Jersey City.
Many residents view murder and sexual assault more seriously than other categories of crime. And they ask about how the merger of police and fire departments has performed in reducing these crimes.
Mixed with questions about the merger are widespread worries about what may have led to the killing of Darcel Rivers. Questions abound about whether he was a victim in the running battle between the law enforcement and the drug lords, or whether he was himself part of the drug ring and his death a business deal that went awry.
"Possibility of vengeance by drug dealers may not have been impossible, because of the position of Darcel's father as a senior officer of the Public Safety Department," Chris Millian, an undergraduate in Criminal Justice at Borough of Manhattan Community College and a resident at the MLK Jr. Drive neighborhood, said.
Prior to his assumption of office, Mayor Steven Fulop promised residents in the Martin Luther King Jr. Drive neighborhood - an area regarded as the home to drugs and crime in the city - that he would be coming to live in the neighborhood to show his desire towards ending crime wave and drugs there, and to convince residents about the seriousness of his intention.
“It’s a strong signal, is really what I think. I want to have a commitment to the area beyond just saying it,” the mayor said in a Jersey Journal interview in 2013, shortly after his election.
By June 2015, news report said that the mayor had bought a house in the Heights and that he would no longer be moving to the MLK Jr. Drive neighborhood. Many residents said that increasing crime rate in the neighborhood may have caused the mayor's change of mind.
"The neighborhood needs to be cleaned up before the mayor can come and live here. But the cleaning up has been too slow," Marshall Sluggard, owner of Sluggos Laundromat on the MLK Drive and Botswick Avenue, said. He added that the mayor wants to be comfortable and be alive.
"Where the mayor chooses to live does not matter to me. What matters to me is the provision the mayor is making available for me to keep the neighborhood safe," Timothy Lockwood, South District Commander of Jersey City Police said, and he pointed at police officers on foot patrol, as part of the provisions he attributed to the mayor.
Secondly, Mayor Fulop merged the police and the fire departments, as part of his decisions toward achieving efficiency in crime reduction.
"The merger has streamlined communication for the three services: The police, the fire and the emergency services that are now under the Public Safety Department." To be sincere, as a police officer, I cannot lead fire operation and nor can a fire officer lead police operation," Lockwood said about the merger. He did not say whether the merger had reduced crime.
However, an anonymous staff of the Jersey City Employment and Training Program, JCETP, who only agreed to speak under condition that he be identified as Mike, said that if police and fire departments merger had achieved the objective of efficiency in crime reduction, there would have been no need for the recent introduction of police foot patrol.
.
Murder mystery and police patrol
The murder of Darcel Rivers - the son of the city's fire chief, the mayor's purchase of a house in the Heights - instead of the MLK Jr. Drive neighborhood - and the emergence of police foot patrol in the neighborhood, are all parts of widespread discussions among residents in the MLK Drive neighborhood.
Darren Rivers' remarks at his son's funeral, "I just hope the tragedy can bring back the city that made me, the city that has taken care of me all my life. We need whatever it takes to bring the city back. Please, don't allow my son's death to be in vain," observers say, capture the current mood in Jersey City.
Many residents view murder and sexual assault more seriously than other categories of crime. And they ask about how the merger of police and fire departments has performed in reducing these crimes.
Mixed with questions about the merger are widespread worries about what may have led to the killing of Darcel Rivers. Questions abound about whether he was a victim in the running battle between the law enforcement and the drug lords, or whether he was himself part of the drug ring and his death a business deal that went awry.
"Possibility of vengeance by drug dealers may not have been impossible, because of the position of Darcel's father as a senior officer of the Public Safety Department," Chris Millian, an undergraduate in Criminal Justice at Borough of Manhattan Community College and a resident at the MLK Jr. Drive neighborhood, said.
"No one has been arrested for Darcel's murder," Lockwood said in August, three months after Darcel's murder. "The time and the hour of Darcel's murder have made it difficult to know what actually happened, and no one has come forward with useful information."
"Police foot patrol in the neighborhood is new to me. This has never happened before," Muhammed Hannif, a resident on Clinton Avenue, said. Many other residents affirmed Hannif's statement, just like Lockwood had said earlier in an interview.
"We go where the crime is when people call," Lockwood said in March 2015, after a session of the Police Community Relations' meeting at the Saint Paul the Apostle Catholic Church, Greenville Avenue. He said the police did not patrol the streets on foot, but moved around in vehicles and answered distressed calls from residents, because foot patrol was impracticable due to financial constraints and shortfall in logistics.
What has now compelled the change in police operations?
"The decision to have police patrol the streets had been on the table before the murder. The appearance of officers on the street shortly after Darcel's murder was merely coincidental," Lockwood said. He explained further, "32 police officers graduated from the Police College around the time, and 16 of the officers were assigned to the South District, while the remaining 16 were assigned to the West Side."
However, curious residents remember that the Public Safety Director has promise to use police foot patrol on his assumption of office in 2013, police foot patrol being one unusual phenomenon that has been seen in the neighborhood after Darcel's murder.
"Police foot patrol in the neighborhood is new to me. This has never happened before," Muhammed Hannif, a resident on Clinton Avenue, said. Many other residents affirmed Hannif's statement, just like Lockwood had said earlier in an interview.
"We go where the crime is when people call," Lockwood said in March 2015, after a session of the Police Community Relations' meeting at the Saint Paul the Apostle Catholic Church, Greenville Avenue. He said the police did not patrol the streets on foot, but moved around in vehicles and answered distressed calls from residents, because foot patrol was impracticable due to financial constraints and shortfall in logistics.
What has now compelled the change in police operations?
"The decision to have police patrol the streets had been on the table before the murder. The appearance of officers on the street shortly after Darcel's murder was merely coincidental," Lockwood said. He explained further, "32 police officers graduated from the Police College around the time, and 16 of the officers were assigned to the South District, while the remaining 16 were assigned to the West Side."
However, curious residents remember that the Public Safety Director has promise to use police foot patrol on his assumption of office in 2013, police foot patrol being one unusual phenomenon that has been seen in the neighborhood after Darcel's murder.
Public Safety Director, James Shea and Police Chief, Philip Zacche at the press conference announcing reduction in crimes (Courtesy: Jersey Journal)
Residents discuss police patrol
"I am not aware whether or not the killing of the fire chief's son in June has led to the appearance of police officers on the streets. Yes, police began patrolling here after the murder. But I am angry that despite the presence of the Greenville Police Precinct a block away on Bergen Avenue, people still gather around street corners here," said Carl Rid, an employee with Stuggos Laundromat on MLK Drive and Bostwick Avenue".
Many people in the neighborhood agree with Rid; not on why police have been patrolling the streets, but that the gatherings around the street corners are meeting points for drug transactions.
Many residents are worried about the gatherings around street corners. It is common to see people wandering aimlessly on the streets, coming and going, moving around to no specific direction. Aside from gathering on street corners, it is also common to see individuals on the street, standing unsteadily, shaking and struggling to remain on their feet. To this tribe of drug addicts, police presence is irrelevant.
But for many law abiding residents, police presence is a welcome relief. They said that they had expected the city to have sent police on foot patrol in the neighborhood a long time ago.
Hoosein Nezan, a resident on Communipaw Avenue, a stone throw north of the MLK Drive, and a security officer with the US Security Associates, said that police visibility on the street is capable of thwarting bad guys' intentions and deter crimes. He also said that police foot patrol may have been a response to the fire chief's call.
Nezan's statement recalled a similar call by Richard Jenkins' (a former drug dealer in the neighborhood) in a Jersey Journal interview in 2013 and called on the city to flood the neighborhood with police, as the only solution he said could rid the area of drugs. Jenkins spoke about a period in the '70s that he said drugs were everywhere in the city. But that later everywhere people went, they saw police and no one could sell or do drugs again.
Police officers on foot patrol in the MLK Drive neighborhood (Photo: By Abiodun Giwa)
However, Thomas Reigles, 54, a resident of Bostwick Avenue, and an employee of Chickpea, an eatery in Journal Square Transportation Center, said, "It is one thing for police officers to patrol the streets, it is another for their presence to have desirable effect. These officers walk the streets, but they seem to pay no attention to gatherings in the neighborhood. My fear is whether this (police presence) will ever bring a change here, considering how long this issue has been in the neighborhood."
He added: "People sleep here during the day and host block parties in the night. It isn't that the police have not been working. But that despite the active police presence in the night, ordering suspects to raise their hands and face the wall for search, the block parties have not stopped."
Reigles, who formerly lived in Trenton, said that he heard more sounds of gun shots here, than he had heard in all other places put together.
O'Donnell confirms that his office does receive complaints from residents around Bostwick Avenue area in the MLK Drive.
He added: "People sleep here during the day and host block parties in the night. It isn't that the police have not been working. But that despite the active police presence in the night, ordering suspects to raise their hands and face the wall for search, the block parties have not stopped."
Reigles, who formerly lived in Trenton, said that he heard more sounds of gun shots here, than he had heard in all other places put together.
O'Donnell confirms that his office does receive complaints from residents around Bostwick Avenue area in the MLK Drive.
Words of inspiration on the windows of Martin's Place, (Jersey City Employment and Training Center), depicting effort to reclaim returning prisoners and the MLK neighborhood ( Video: By Abiodun Giwa)
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A resident talks to the reporter about his observations in the MLK Drive neighborhood (Audio: By Abiodun Giwa)
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A map of Jersey City showing Communipaw Avenue, West Side, Garfield Avenue and the Greenville section of the MLK Drive (Photo: Courtesy: www.nonprfacts.com)
The problem and search for solution
"The root problem," Lockwood said, "is about poverty and broken families. Drug dealing and drug use take a lot of our efforts. A lot of people who are addicted to drugs get into property crime to sustain their habits. Drug dealers are involved in violent crimes to protect their territories. Drug addicts break into cars and homes in search of means to source drugs, and drug dealers fight on the streets over control of the market."
On the effect of drugs on families, he said, "There are too many families raising kids without financial support, and many children with opportunity for free school, but letting the opportunity slip away. The children prefer to hang out on the street, not going to school or working."
Lockwood laments the influence he said the lifestyles of drug addicts and dealers are having on children in the neighborhood, because all they see are friends and gangs selling drugs and going to jail. He said police is doing its work and the result is mass incarceration, a reference point to the picture of the unenviable situation that Mayor Fulop inherited.
The new mayor was quick to tackle the work that had awaited him. He appointed a new Public Safety Director, James Shea, formerly of the New York Police Department, NYPD, and merged police and fire departments. In a rare operation in 2013, officers of the Public Safety Department reportedly arrested about 200 felons and seized a large quantity of ammunitions.
Although, the anonymous JCETP officer hails police foot patrol as part of effort to reclaim the MLK Drive, but he decries too much emphasis on police operations. He cites ideas, which he said are also parts of the mayor's effort being implemented, to tackle lack of education, lack of job opportunities and widespread poverty among residents. He said that the JCETP is aiming to ensure that incarcerated offenders don't return to drugs after prison terms. He added that the organization is targeting drug treatment for offenders instead of incarceration, against the current practice of releasing them from prison and allowing them return to drugs.
Residents' nostalgia
"The root problem," Lockwood said, "is about poverty and broken families. Drug dealing and drug use take a lot of our efforts. A lot of people who are addicted to drugs get into property crime to sustain their habits. Drug dealers are involved in violent crimes to protect their territories. Drug addicts break into cars and homes in search of means to source drugs, and drug dealers fight on the streets over control of the market."
On the effect of drugs on families, he said, "There are too many families raising kids without financial support, and many children with opportunity for free school, but letting the opportunity slip away. The children prefer to hang out on the street, not going to school or working."
Lockwood laments the influence he said the lifestyles of drug addicts and dealers are having on children in the neighborhood, because all they see are friends and gangs selling drugs and going to jail. He said police is doing its work and the result is mass incarceration, a reference point to the picture of the unenviable situation that Mayor Fulop inherited.
The new mayor was quick to tackle the work that had awaited him. He appointed a new Public Safety Director, James Shea, formerly of the New York Police Department, NYPD, and merged police and fire departments. In a rare operation in 2013, officers of the Public Safety Department reportedly arrested about 200 felons and seized a large quantity of ammunitions.
Although, the anonymous JCETP officer hails police foot patrol as part of effort to reclaim the MLK Drive, but he decries too much emphasis on police operations. He cites ideas, which he said are also parts of the mayor's effort being implemented, to tackle lack of education, lack of job opportunities and widespread poverty among residents. He said that the JCETP is aiming to ensure that incarcerated offenders don't return to drugs after prison terms. He added that the organization is targeting drug treatment for offenders instead of incarceration, against the current practice of releasing them from prison and allowing them return to drugs.
Residents' nostalgia
Police swarm on suspects at a street corner on MLK Drive and Myrtle Avenue (Courtesy: Jersey Journal)
Many reports about the MLK Jr. Drive neighborhood said that the area has predominantly black population and a sprinkle of Caucasians. And that it once had a thriving life, but which suddenly came to an end in the early '70s.
None of the reports have mentioned the cause of the loss of the thriving life, other than that a sudden economic downturn developed and jobs moved away, with a large number of Jewish population.
Instead of recovery from the exodus, the area became a haven for crime and drugs, and it became the home to a larger percentage of drugs and crime in the city.
"We had trolleys that moved people from here to where the rail station is currently located," Sluggard said in nostalgia. "Between here (The MLK Drive and the Bostwick Avenue intersection) and the shopping Hub, there were about six men's ware houses. But today there are none."
What now characterize the neighborhood are shuttered stores and vacant apartments, and all sorts of characters selling and doing drugs, while law abiding citizens pray and wait for a miracle to transform their neighborhood to its former enviable state.
People with the knowledge of the area describes it as a place that was once like a heavenly existence. But that it is now the opposite, defying solutions and bad enough for the mayor to dance away from his promise to come and live among the people.
"It was not like this when I was growing up here," a secretary in the community office of serving senators on the MLK Jr. Drive said - off the record - recalling the good old days in the neighborhood.
None of the reports have mentioned the cause of the loss of the thriving life, other than that a sudden economic downturn developed and jobs moved away, with a large number of Jewish population.
Instead of recovery from the exodus, the area became a haven for crime and drugs, and it became the home to a larger percentage of drugs and crime in the city.
"We had trolleys that moved people from here to where the rail station is currently located," Sluggard said in nostalgia. "Between here (The MLK Drive and the Bostwick Avenue intersection) and the shopping Hub, there were about six men's ware houses. But today there are none."
What now characterize the neighborhood are shuttered stores and vacant apartments, and all sorts of characters selling and doing drugs, while law abiding citizens pray and wait for a miracle to transform their neighborhood to its former enviable state.
People with the knowledge of the area describes it as a place that was once like a heavenly existence. But that it is now the opposite, defying solutions and bad enough for the mayor to dance away from his promise to come and live among the people.
"It was not like this when I was growing up here," a secretary in the community office of serving senators on the MLK Jr. Drive said - off the record - recalling the good old days in the neighborhood.
