Trenton mayor campaigned on ‘beat cops.’ So where are they more than 3 years later?
TRENTON » On April 7, 2014, then-mayoral candidate Eric Jackson stood on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard near a recent homicide scene.
At the press conference, Jackson outlined his plan to fight crime.
Most notably, Jackson revealed his initiative to implement “beat cops.”
“‘Beat cops’ or foot patrol officers know their neighborhood, interact with their community, provide deterrence to crime and increase police visibility in neighborsaid hoods, and in business districts,” Jackson in a press release of his crime plan. “Eric Jackson would mandate the creation and maintenance of committed foot patrols. The Jackson administration would work with the police union and police leadership to establish an operational and economic incentive to encourage and reward officers who seek to engage in foot patrol and work intimately with their community.”
More than three years later after Jackson assumed office in July 2014, beat cops in Trenton don’t really exist. And even by the mayor’s own admission.
“If you go downtown, you’ll see police out of the trucks on patrol downtown,” the first-term mayor said last month. “Are we walking in the neighborhoods? Not at this point. But we are moving toward that.”
Walking the streets of neighborhoods — especially crime-ridden sections of the city — is a key component of community policing. Despite lip service from Jackson and Police Director Ernest Parrey Jr. about the need for community policing, no “beat cops” are on the ground in the most violent sections of the city, such as the 500 block of Lamberton Street, Stuyvesant Avenue, Oakland and Hoffman, Prospect Village and the North 25 Housing complex.
Jackson did not return a message seek-
ing comment on Tuesday.
City spokesman Michael Walker provided a boilerplate statement to The Trentonian on crime, but he failed to address
the mayor’s campaign promise of beat cops.
When asked to provide an appropriate response, Walker then alleged the reporter was threatening him.
“It is unprofessional to make threats, and I will not respond to such a negative dynamic,” Walker wrote in an email. “I apologize if it is incompatible
with whatever narrative or angle you are trying to achieve. The fact is, Mayor Jackson and Police Director Parrey are focused on, among other things, deploying police officers in a manner that is measurable and impactful. Here is another fact: This approach, which utilizes current sworn-officer levels, has resulted in lower crime overall in the
city of Trenton.”
Walker, however, provided no statistics to back his statement that crime is down.
The city spokesman also said the city is working with the state to hire additional police officers “to help the Trenton Police Department bolster its crime-fighting strategy.”