Town Council discusses Floyd protests, unrest
HAMILTON » Councilman Pat Papero Jr., a longtime Mercer County sheriff’s officer, is well aware of the looting and attempted burglaries that have occurred in the Hamilton area and beyond following the death of George Floyd.
“We saw a week of civil unrest,” Papero said at Thursday’s Hamilton Council meeting. “Something that we saw in this country as a whole was despicable, for lack of a better term. We saw an event that triggered a lot of emotion.”
Papero was referring to the slaying of Floyd, a black man who died at the hands of four Minneapolis cops last month.
The gang of four has been fired from the Minneapolis Police Department and charged heavy crimes, including seconddegree murder for Derek Chauvin, the white man who pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds during the evening of May 25, killing him, authorities said.
“People want justice and rightfully so,” Papero said, adding the actions of the disgraced ex-cops in Minneapolis “does not paint the picture” of the broader law-enforcement community across the United States.
Papero, a Democrat, said it is important for law-enforcement officers to support their communities.
“We have to remain one family,” he said. “We will stick this out and fight this together.”
The Rev. Dr. Joseph E. Woods, pastor of Saint Phillips Baptist Church of Hamilton, delivered an invocation at Thursday’s Hamilton Council meeting, where he prayed for justice in a country tainted with police brutality.
Recalling the brutal nine minutes of Chauvin’s deadly restraint of Floyd, Woods expressed a hope that “no one else will have to experience another minute that looks like those painful minutes.”
Due to the COVID-19 public health emergency, the Hamilton Council meeting featured remote public participation via telephone.
“I share in the outrage of the legal protesters, the peaceful protesters,” Council President Rick Tighe said at the meeting, “and I also appreciate the professionalism that our law enforcement officers and first responders displayed this week under difficult circumstances.”
Hamilton Police this week announced several arrests of defendants accused of attempted burglaries or curfew violations.
Meanwhile, police were searching for the suspects who had burglarized the CVS pharmacy at the corner of Hamilton Avenue and Klockner Road across from Nottingham High School about 12:40 a.m.
Monday.
The front doors to the store were pried open, the glass was broken and approximately $900 was taken from the registers in the store, Hamilton Police said Monday in a news release.
Tighe, a Democrat, said he represents all of Hamilton Township and that all of his constituents have
“equal stake in our government and equal say in our government.”
“We are going to be looking of ways to have that dialogue,” Tighe added, saying he wants to “raise the confidence level of the public” by assuring township residents that everyone will be treated fairly in this 40-square-mile community.