Calls for more police? How about better police?
South Ward Councilman George Muschal unleashed a call for more city police officers, a request that connects to disturbances that have occurred at South Rio on South Warren St.
“This is only a bar letting loose and we have no control over it. It goes to show you that we need officers before we need an entertainment area downtown,” Muschal told The Trentonian.
Muschal should preface his desire for more police with superlative adjectives such as “qualified”, “decent” and “law-abiding”, considering that feds have launched an investigation regarding officers’ behaviors during an April 2017 arrest.
A simplistic solution exists regarding South Rio: shut down the establishment even if owners make the case that the disturbances have occurred outside the restaurant.
More police remains an aged outcry but one that will garner law enforcement support for Muschal during his South Ward council race against Damian Malave and Jenna Kettenburg.
More police? More taxes? Our affinity for more represents a gluttonous desire for initiatives that have failed in the past.
These calls for proliferation of police, even if obliged, demand that the City hire qualified people for these positions of power. Considering budget issues, Trenton may need a lean, clean law enforcement machine that understands rules regarding police behavior as well as citizens rights.
More police has always surfaced as solution. In 1961, William T. Boland murdered Goldie Garb with a butcher knife inside her Hiltonia home. The homicide sparked conversations about police and how they perform their duties.
A Mercer County Grand Jury convened to deliver perspectives on the city police force. That body recommended that the City of Trenton immediately employ at least 54 additional police officers to provide adequate protection for its citizens.
The panel warned the people of Trenton “will suffer needless deaths and grievous harm” without increased police numbers.
“From the evidence presented to us and our experiences with citizens, we believe that a major deterrent to crime is the officer on foot patrolling the streets of the city,” Grand Jury members contended.
A local newspaper editorial noted “there is no acceptable substitute for the patrolman on foot, one with an intimate knowledge of his neighborhood, who picks up important bits of information here and there, who knows the people, including those who logically come under suspicion when trouble develops.”
Sixty years after Boland knifed Goldie Garb, we still talk about community policing, foot patrols and officers developing positive relationships with citizens.
Officers punching out suspects and then bragging about beatings dismantles the public trust. Federal agencies launching investigations of individuals on a police force that makes excuses for nonperformance only contributes to public suspicions.
“The (2011) layoffs created a vacuum where we don’t have enough senior officers to train people correctly,” a city cop told The Trentonian.
“We’ve had four classes of recruits in four years after going several years without any new
guys and several retirements. We created a problem.”
We have serious problems if young police officers fresh out of the Academy do not have a working understanding about human rights.
Solutions exist.
Shut down South Rio and terminate all officers found guilty of altering reports, lying and those who use unreasonable force in subduing suspects. Plus, city police must understand that they work as public servants for residents.
Let’s hire better police officers who receive guidance about their roles from exemplary superior officers. Plus, as Trenton moves toward a May 8 municipal election, this city must demand that law enforcement leaders deliver a plan on fighting crime.
Understand that crime connects to poverty, abandoned houses, high weeds, drug dealers, illegally dumped garbage, discarded automobile tires, and a litany of other quality of life issues.
Just saying more solves nothing or else we end up with more of the same.