ONE LIFE TOO MANY
Young man’s death fuels city’s grief
TRENTON —Despite the packed to capacity conference room in the basement of the Trenton Police Department, Monday night’s meeting between police director Ralph Rivera, city council members, community leaders and hundreds of Trenton residents still carried a personal feel for Regina Jenkins, the mother of Tre Lane, the 19-year-old aspiring social worker who became Trenton’s 15th homicide Saturday morning.
“My son grew up around the majority of these people, they’ve actually seen him grow up,” Jenkins said.
Jenkins and Lane’s father, William Lane, stood in front of the crowd holding back tears calling for the community to respond.
“Please if you know something or hear something call the police,” Jenkins said. “I don’t want street justice, I want a justice system. I want him to go through that system and see that pain in my eyes,”
“He was my only baby, he was on the right path, he did everything right, everything I asked him to do… and today my heart is broken,” Jenkins added.
There was talk of what the police would do with Rivera calling for support from the New Jersey State police and putting the TPD’s tactical unit on the street. The elected officials talked about political activism but the main theme of the night was the call for the community to start talking, to the police, to their ministers and community leaders, and to each other.
“We can’t just close our eyes because the next day it could be someone in your family,” Rivera said.
“Trenton isn’t that big. Somebody in here knows somebody who knows did it,” council president Phyllis Holly-Ward said of Lane’s murder.
Community leader Andrew Bobbitt expressed his frustration with the community.
“A lady got shot, 77 years old in her house on Stuyvesant, nobody saw anything and I rode down the street and everybody was outside,” Bobbitt said.“People love to close their eyes, they don’t want to see this,”
“Feel the pain of Regina and Will, let it hit your house,” he added. “We have to come together and get it done,”
Jenkins said she is grateful for the support of the community at the meeting, she hopes the community will step up its efforts to clean up the city.
“[I expect them] to do the right thing, come forward, I want justice for my son, I don’t want him to die in vain because he was a good kid,” Jenkins said. “He was my everything.”