By David Cruz
Correspondent
Mayor Ras Baraka is under no illusion that the changes he is making to his troubled police department will fix the city’s violent crime problem immediately, but he hopes that the shakeup, which today he announced will include the installation of a civilian to head up the department’s internal affairs unit, will inspire a change in the culture, inside the department and on the street, with residents.
“Ultimately, we need people to come forward. We need intelligence,” he said. “We need to make intelligence on the street, and people have to feel comfortable in order to do that. They need to have a better relationship with the police; they have to feel like they’re going to be protected. They have to understand that we may have to relocate them. There are all type of factors that are involved in that that are not just boots on the ground.”
In front of a packed city hall rotunda and accompanied by Chief of Police Anthony Campos, Baraka said he would name someone — an attorney, he pointed out — in the next few weeks, at the latest. He said the person should be well versed in policing trends nationally and should serve as a liaison to the public, other police partners and to a forthcoming federal monitor. More importantly, though, the person will be “someone that’s also not easily intimidated.”
As for Chief Campos, who published reports in December said was on the outs and headed out the door, he said those reports were highly exaggerated and that — while he is retiring — he is sticking around long enough to see the department’s changes implemented. Although it was clear today that Campos will be on a short leash.
“Obviously, there’s a move to change police culture, and you also gotta look at things through a wider lens,” he said before being pulled away by the mayor. “I mean there’s a nationwide trend to do this and we’re simply doing what we have to do to improve service and make Newark safer and increase and strengthen the relationship between the community and the police.”
Baraka’s new public safety director — Anthony Ambrose — will be a key player in the department’s changes, but he will likely face significant resistance from entrenched forces like the police unions, including Superior Officers Union Head John Chrystal, who said in a statement today: “The City, unless approved by the Attorney General, has overstepped its authority if it appoints a Civilian to be in charge of Internal Affairs … Unless the Attorney General or county prosecutor approved this, I believe the Mayor, again, did not do his homework and has again overstepped his authority.”
The mayor also confirmed today that he had received letters threatening his life. The letters were sent to his mother’s home but Baraka wouldn’t elaborate on the subject except to say that the prosecutor’s office was investigating.
“I think that the other stuff is part of the job but people who would go up to your mother’s house and drop something in the mailbox that says something like that is a bit much for me as a human being, never mind the mayor, so it makes me wonder about that, more than my own safety,” said Baraka.
The mayor says he is determined to shake up this department, knowing full well that the tough medicine, while it may be necessary, will not go down easily.