By David Cruz
Correspondent
Mayor Ras Baraka came out swinging today. Rocked by 11 shootings and four homicides, Newark is seeing another spike in violent crime and Baraka told a press conference today that he will lead a city-wide response to it.
“I am taking this as a state of emergency in the city of Newark,” said Baraka. “We are gonna respond like it’s a state of emergency in this city immediately. I think the people in the community are gonna feel it immediately. They’re going to see us immediately. They’re going to see and feel the impact immediately.”
Baraka says the response will include up to 60 newly-deployed officers working in teams, on extended work days, targeting areas where violent crime has spiked. With the chief of police and police director by his side, Baraka announced the opening today of a new police precinct in the Central Ward, where much of this weekend’s violence occurred.
The mayor had already scheduled a community-wide meeting on crime for Wednesday, where he says he will discuss a long-term approach to the city’s most pressing issue. But events on the ground here have forced him to do what his predecessors have all been forced to do — reassure his residents that violent crime in Newark is not out of control.
“I don’t want people to believe that 90 percent of the kids are out in the street creating havoc and mayhem,” said the mayor. “It’s one percent. In fact, it’s less than one percent creating this drama in our city and we today are going to go after that one percent.”
Newark’s spike in crime comes after a week that saw protests in the wake of the grand jury decision in the Michael Brown shooting and a call for unity in the black community. It surprised few people here that the majority of the crime victims, and their perpetrators, were black.
“I think that there has been a very systemic process done to quell that outrage in our communities,” said community activist Donna Jackson. “I think that there is a serious fear. I think there’s a serious sense of hopelessness here that continues to go on. I think people are taking their kids, sheltering them in their homes. When you get home from school, you’re not going back outside.”
On the campus at NJCU in Jersey City, students from the Black Freedom Society held a die-in to protest against police brutality, begging the question from some about where the outrage was over black on black crime.
“When you judge a black person for doing black on black crime I want you to analyze the psychological effects of slavery that have penetrated into this,” said student activist Jazmine Woods. “I want you to analyze the communities that have liquor stores on every corner, that they’re taking away schools but they spend $80 million to build prisons.”
Baraka says his police department is making strides in community relations, but with so many young people of color distrustful of police, fighting the crime that most adversely affects young people of color, will continue to be a challenge.