By Michael Hill
Correspondent
Three days later, Newark Police have the 100 block of South Tenth Street barricaded with officers back at the scene of the fatal shooting of 15-year-old Haniyah Woods of Westside High School, another case police and prosecutors are relying on the public to offer tips.
“We live in a civilized society and murder will not be tolerated,” said Acting Essex County Prosecutor Carolyn Muray.
Today, the acting Essex County prosecutor, Newark’s mayor and public safety director announced a series of arrests and the names of the wanted suspects for shootings and murders going back to January.
“The point of these arrests is deterrence. Both specific deterrence of that individual and specific deterrence. A message that we want to share today is if you commit a crime of a certain magnitude — a shooting or murder — we don’t give up,” Murray said.
“We’re trying to send a message to folks, you may commit a crime in the city of Newark, we can’t get into your mind and stop you from committing a crime, but when you do commit a crime, we’re going to come after you and use every resource we have to arrest you and bring you to justice here in the city of Newark,” said Mayor Ras Baraka.
Newark is on pace to exceed last year’s homicides. But police see the crime fight through a different prism.
“During our summer months we’ve always realized a spike in violence and a spike in crime. This year I must say that we had a decrease of 15 percent in crime overall from June 1 to yesterday, Labor Day. That’s still not good enough. Our robberies are down, our shootings are down 17 percent year-to-date, our homicides are up by five — 68 to 63 this year,” said Newark Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose.
Law enforcers here credit some of the crime solving to a more cooperative and trusting public and better police-community relations.
“Let me first start by saying I thank the public because we cannot do it alone. A lot of this information came through our tip line and our hotlines and through our detectives doing old fashioned detective work out of the street,” Ambrose said.
But longtime anti-violence advocate Donna Jackson takes a different view and she recently unloaded on the mayor.
“Ras and the tired Newark City Council, I’m calling you out. It’s time for you to step down. It’s time for you, because you do not give a damn, it’s time for you to step down,” she said.
“All of the press events that we have talking about what we do in the city that are positive, the folks aren’t there. I would tell them that they should come,” Baraka said.
Some who are waging war against the violence and murders in Newark say the issue needs the same attention, focus and resources that the heroin epidemic gets.
“They’re not policing heroin out. They’re talking about dealing with stuff from the judiciary level to deal with treatment and all that kind of stuff and it’s not happening when you’re talking about gun violence where the CDC has claimed that gun violence and violence is a public health crisis,” said Salaam Ismial, director of the National United Youth Council.
“I think it has a lot to do with demographics and race and the fact that we’re an inner city,” Baraka said.
The New Jersey Study Commission on Violence issued a report with 82 recommendations to curb the violence in the Garden State. Among them, targeting the accessibility and proliferation of illegal guns and addressing the social issues of those quick to pull the trigger and those quick to catch a bullet. Elected and appointed leaders and advocates agree policing alone is far from the ultimate solution of lives lasting well beyond 15 years.