By Briana Vannozzi
Correspondent
Community unrest following a number of police involved shootings around the country is at an all time high. Democratic leaders are taking the opportunity to try revamping the state’s guidelines for investigating these situations.
“It’s our intent so that whenever any kind of an accident happens where there’s a fatality and police are involved that the investigation would not be done by the county prosecutor, because there’s concerns among some people with the closeness of local police departments,” said Senate President Steve Sweeney.
Under the proposal, the attorney general’s office will oversee an independent investigation by a special prosecutor.
“Somewhere along the way there has been a great divide that has taken place between what police officers are doing and what our residents are doing. We now have a great misunderstanding. And the feeling that we cannot trust each other. We have to do whatever is necessary to bridge that gap,” said Sen. Sandra Cunningham.
Local police departments are barred from investigating shootings involving their own officers. Current guidelines call for the county prosecutor and a shooting response team within the state Division of Criminal Justice to determine if use of force was justified.
“This is not an attack on police officers, it is far from that. It’s just ensuring people they get justice when something happens that we’ve seen recently,” Sweeney said.
“This is not just about eliminating conflicts that a local prosecutor may have. It’s also about eliminating the perception of conflict,” said ACLU-NJ Public Policy Director Ari Rosmarin.
The proposed legislation would have the newly created special prosecutor present evidence to a grand jury, which would decide whether criminal charges are warranted.
“This could be historic and a victory for the families and those of us in the civil rights community who have demanded police accountability for years,” said New Jersey NAACP President Richard Smith.
“The other issue in terms of trying to develop more trust and confidence is body cameras. We need to have every officer who comes into contact with people in the community wearing body cameras,” said Sen. Shirley Turner.
Turner has sponsored a number of bills to increase police accountability, but they’ve rarely made it out of committee, often criticized as additional expensive, unfunded mandates.
“It’s funny how the state finds money for what it values. When we had a special Senate election a few years back and the question was how will we pay for it, the governor told the taxpayers we’ll find the money somewhere. So I urge you, governor, to do the same today. Find the money this time,” Smith said.
The bill sponsors lauded police officers and all they face, but emphasized a little extra trust could go a long way.