LICENSE TO BOUNCE
Park rangers and cops show up to shut down children’s birthday party for bouncehouse without a permit, grandmother accuses Council President of snitching >>
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TRENTON >> An upset grandmother wants to see “miserable-a**” council president Kathy McBride bounced from office.
Kara Ingram and her family were having a birthday party for her 5-year-old grandson, Andrew, at Laurel Avenue Park on Monday when city officials arrived to break up the good-natured festivities.
She was told by a park ranger and police officer that, because she didn’t have a permit and insurance to operate a bouncy house and water slide for the kids at the city park, she’d be ticketed if they’d didn’t come down.
Incensed over the cops getting involved, Ingram directed a profanity-laced Facebook Live tirade against McBride, claiming the council president, who lives across the street from the park, orchestrated the crackdown.
Ingram claimed in an interview Wednesday that she overheard a phone conversation a park ranger had with recreation director Maria Richardson.
During that conversation, Richardson claimed that McBride tipped off City Hall about the unpermitted shindig, Ingram said.
Richardson didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.
Ingram said the officer who responded to the park
didn’t “want to be the bad guy” and claimed he was only doing his job after being ordered to respond by police director Steve Wilson
“Where was my warning?” Ingram asked. “You all went from zero to a thousands over a permit that I didn’t know I needed. [McBride] sticks into everybody’s business but her own.”
Lt. Peter Szpakowski, a Trenton Police spokesman, said the community affairs division was notified about the unsanctioned event and patrol responded to the park.
He said Sgt. Ronald Pope and officer Jamar Booker went to keep the peace while the situation was rectified by the recreation department.
McBride denied calling the cops, or anyone else, on the party-goers, adding the situation was getting out of
hand.
“Don’t turn it into an outright war,” McBride said. “Just follow procedures and move on. Don’t start talking about people called the cops on a child. That’s ludicrous.”
An officer was stationed outside of McBride’s home Tuesday after she claimed that Ingram made threats against her.
Ingram is heard in the video claiming that she would “smack” McBride in the face.
“My god, over a permit,” McBride said. “This can’t be real. John Day shows up in front of my house. This can’t be about no permit. I don’t know . ... Do they think I’m running for mayor?”
Police director Wilson said he spoke to McBride “after the fact” about the bouncy-house controversy.
He declined to say how officers were alerted to the unpermitted event but denied ordering his officers to respond to the park at the council president’s urging.
“Absolutely not. That didn’t happen,” the interim director, who is still in his first 60 days in office, told the newspaper.
Wilson needs council’s blessing to stay on as director when his two months are up.
With insinuations of a calculated hit job, the bouncyhouse flap has quickly morphed into another political imbroglio between policy-makers and the people of Trenton.
Retired New Jersey State Police Lt. John Day and community advocate Atalaya Armstrong have jumped into the fold to defend the fuming grandmother.
Armstrong, who is considering a run for council, accompanied Ingram to the mayor’s office Tuesday to lodge complaints against McBride and Richardson.
In a video, she lambasted city officials’ handling of the situation.
She chided McBride for allegedly tossing gas on the fire rather than acting as peace-maker and helping facilitate the family getting the proper permits.
“I am for right all the time,” Armstrong told The Trentonian. “This is not political. This is about what was done to these residents.”
Day said he was surprised to see a police cruiser stationed near McBride’s home when he visited the council president’s neighborhood Tuesday.
“Kathy comes up to the officer belligerent, ‘Aren’t you here to take a report?’ The officer says, ‘I’m assigned here to your house.’”
Day claimed he heard McBride tell the officer that members of Ingram family were “gang-bangers” — something Ingram mentioned when interviewed.
“She’s a bully on the block,” Day said.
Ingram said she and her daughter rented the jump and slide for five hours, but the kids only enjoyed them for three before the party was over.
Ingram and others planned to rally against the alleged “abuse of power” outside McBride’s home.
“I’m looking for accountability,” the 42-year-old grandmother said.
McBride said she didn’t do anything wrong but “can’t change their minds.”
“People are allowed to voice their opinion. They can have my seat because I’m not running for council,” the council president said, before taking that back.