By Dari Kotzker
NJ Today
Thirty-three homicides, 160 shooting victims. The stats went on and on. At an emotionally charged press conference, family members whose loved ones were murdered in Trenton demanded answers from the mayor and police on how to control the violence.
“Our community, the government need to step the game up. People are losing their lives,” said Rosalind White.
Once again, many community members blamed Mayor Tony Mack, saying his lack of leadership and refusal to step down has mired the city in despair. And when asked point blank how he thinks his decision to remain as mayor will impact the way he can lead the city to get rid of violence if some of the residents and council members aren’t supporting him, Mack replied, “Next question, please.”
Instead of answering those questions, Mack outlined a letter he wrote to state lawmakers, asking them for $5.5 million to rehire 75 police officers. Mack claims legislators verbally supported this effort. But the mayor’s been indicted on federal corruption charges and Gov. Chris Christie won’t even speak to him.
“In the event he won’t speak to the mayor then we have the police director, we have the business administrator and some of the other officials that he can speak to to solve this matter,” Mack said.
Mack and Trenton Police Director Ralph Rivera outlined a stop gap measure to place cameras in 12 to 15 unspecified high crime areas and create a specialized task force to target these so-called hot spots. They’d pay for it with capital funds and grants.
“They will know every aspect of that community and they will know how to deal with it,” Mack said.
But officials provided few details.
“Currently at the staffing level the police department is at, it is difficult to bring back any specialty units without taking away from the standard patrol functions,” Rivera said.
The Trenton police director stressed the importance of community involvement. One way is to report crimes, but many residents I spoke with say they don’t call as much because many times, police officers show up late or not at all.
“If it’s let’s say a burglary that has already happened, but you have also a shooting that’s taking place, all the cars are gonna go to the shooting,” Rivera said. “Sometimes there are other priorities, and due to our limited resources we have to address those priorities and calls first, but we’ll always get back to those individuals.”
The mayor professed hopes for a better Trenton, but what do residents think?
“We won’t get any funding or none of the things he’s promised or said he’s doing for us, won’t come through until he’s out of office,” said Jasmine Washington.
“The governor said that he won’t address the mayor until the mayor steps down. So does that mean we the citizens of the capital city of Trenton, N.J. have to continue to suffer, burying our loved ones?” asked White.
Mack says his office reached out to every legislator to discuss his proposed bill, but wouldn’t give specifics of how many members they actually spoke to.