In May 2020, a Washington, D.C.-based research organization began an audit of the Paterson Police Department at the request of city officials.

The findings from the Police Executive Research Forum, published in a February 2022 report, detail wide-ranging issues within the department, from police officers using force overwhelmingly against Black and brown residents of the city to the need for a community survey that would gauge residents’ satisfaction with police services. The report also found a lack of diversity at the supervisor level.

The police department has implemented some of the recommendations in the audit, although some are only partially completed or in progress, according to Dacil Tilos, a spokeswoman for Mayor Andre Sayegh. The mayor and his chief of staff were not available to discuss the audit, according to Tilos. Paterson Police Chief Engelbert Ribeiro was unavailable for comment, according to Lt. Ralph Hernandez.

According to a 2020 audit, the police department could ‘do more to build trust and improve its relationship with residents.’

Advocates and social justice organizations statewide say the recent police killing of Najee Seabrooks demonstrates the fatal gaps that the Paterson Police Department still needs to address after the audit was released one year ago.

“It’s not just residents of Paterson and advocacy organizations that have identified areas of concern in the Paterson Police Department,” said Yannick Wood, the director of the criminal justice reform program at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice. “This audit also highlights these issues … how certain officers use force much more frequently than others. How force is disproportionately used against Black residents.”

Requesting federal oversight

The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, along with almost 50 other organizations in the state, highlighted the audit in a recent letter to the U.S. Department of Justice, calling for federal oversight of the Paterson Police Department.

“We can’t just solely rely on the state to investigate this because we know that Paterson Police Department has escaped accountability for many years,” Wood said.

Mayor Sayegh told PIX11 News on Monday that federal intervention was not needed. He has acknowledged over the years that the Paterson Police Department needs reform.

Sayegh ordered the audit after eight Paterson police officers were charged with federal civil rights violations in 2019 and 2020. It was touted as a way to provide a fresh start for the department, which has a history of using excessive force, and was part of Sayegh’s “Tools of Trust” initiative. The goal was to provide all police officers with body cameras and establish a resident oversight board, which has yet to be created.

The audit also recommended that the police department’s use-of-force policy put an emphasis on de-escalating situations that do not pose an immediate threat to officers and adding a definition of de-escalation to its policy. The mayor’s office says the police department has adjusted its use-of-force policy to slow situations down and has enhanced its definition of de-escalation.

Little evidence of restraint

But Wood noted that in the shooting and killing of Seabrooks, it’s hard to see where Paterson police observed the recommendation to slow things down.

“I know that they were there for hours … before the officers fired upon him,” said Wood. “But in the moment, we don’t see slowing down, we see escalation. We don’t see a use of distance and cover, we see them approaching him and a congregation of officers surrounding his location. And they’re all wearing tactical gear,” he said.

In December 2020, then-Attorney General Gurbir Grewal revised the state’s use-of-force policy to prohibit all forms of physical force against an individual, except as a last resort and only after the officer attempts to de-escalate the situation. The revised policy prohibited all forms of deadly force against a civilian, including chokeholds and strikes to the head or neck, except as an absolute last resort.

In the audit, the Police Executive Research Forum recommended that the Paterson police remove language authorizing the use of chokeholds and neck and vascular restraints and do away with these techniques altogether. The mayor’s office says this recommendation has been completed by the department.

Community trust in the police department is already low, and that’s demonstrated in the audit’s findings. It said the department could “do more to build trust and improve its relationship with residents.” Members of the audit team spoke to community activists, who cited the incident with Jameek Lowery as one of the reasons why trust in the Paterson police was broken. Lowery, 27, died in 2019 after seeking help from police during a medical and mental health crisis.

Comprehensive reviews needed?

The audit also noted that there were no indications that supervisors in the police department conducted comprehensive reviews of use-of-force reports and incidents. The Police Executive Research Forum recommended that supervisors in the police department respond to all reportable use-of-force incidents and to incidents where it is anticipated that force may be used. The organization also recommended that sergeants in the police department look at each incident in its entirety, not only at the moment when force was used, to determine whether there were missed opportunities to de-escalate an incident or resolve it without the use of force.

Zellie Thomas of Black Lives Matter Paterson, a key social-justice group in the city, told a crowd at a March 7 rally for Seabrooks that he does not, and will not, trust the Paterson police.

“Oftentimes, you hear politicians and law enforcement say that he wants to rebuild trust with the community, but you cannot rebuild trust when trust never existed in the first place,” Thomas told NJ Spotlight News in a recent interview. Thomas also signed onto the letter calling for federal oversight.

The Paterson City Council struck down a resolution on March 15 to create a committee to oversee the police department’s promotion and enrollment practices.

Part of Sayegh’s efforts to build community trust in the police department involved changing police leadership. The former police chief, Ibrahim Baycora, was fired by Sayegh in September 2022 after he accused him of sleeping during cabinet meetings. Sayegh appointed a new police chief, Engelbert Ribeiro, who was sworn in on the same day Seabrooks was killed.

“Trust doesn’t happen overnight, we need to earn that trust,” Ribeiro said when he was sworn in at Paterson’s International High School.

But it’s not clear how law enforcement will build trust with the community, especially since its Black and Latino residents have expressed concerns that they’re overpoliced by the department. The Paterson City Council struck down a resolution on March 15 to create a committee to oversee the department’s promotion and enrollment practices, which would have addressed the supervisor diversity issue that the audit flagged.

Distrust was further amplified by how the police dealt with Seabrooks, advocates said. The police did not allow Paterson Healing Collective to help when they received Seabrooks’ mental health emergency call. Seabrooks told collective members that he wanted them there that day. They were trained to de-escalate situations like Seabrooks’, but they were prevented from offering assistance.

The audit, and the community’s distrust of the police department, underscore the need for federal oversight and investments in community-based violence intervention programs, Wood said.

“When I went to (Seabrooks’) funeral, and the church was packed with individuals — and I’m sure that not all those individuals knew … Najee Seabrooks, but just to see the outpouring of support and emotion and just despair and frustration and anger, it seems like this is not going away anytime soon,” Wood said.

— Graphic by Genesis Obando