 Right now, in Newark's South Ward, there's an exchange going on - toy guns handed over by small children, exchanged for other playthings, or for books. Mayor Cory Booker, whose story and interaction with Newark police and the street crimes they tackle has been chronicled for two years in a documentary series on Sundance, was planning to speak.
The event - Newark's city council members will also attend - is a project of Stop Shootin' Music and its founder Al'Tarik Onque, who lives in Newark.
You can imagine the power of the symbolism here. Toy guns are more than mere baubles. Between 1979 and 2001, gunfire killed 90,000 children and teens in America. Real loss is felt in Newark. And Essex County has more homicides than the next three counties combined. Newark's police force is likely to come under federal monitor after a federal Justice Department investigation spurred by a formal request from NJ's ACLU, citing inaction in its internal affairs bureau - the police dept. policing itself - and community complaints of excessive force. |
| It's not always easy to tell whether reforms instituted by or supported by Mayor Booker are his best effort or a product of the public relations - and fund-generating - swirl that has accompanied Booker for years now. The award-winning documentary Street Fight about his unsuccessful run at mayor helped drive his eventual election as mayor. And almost from the moment of his election, myth began building around him, much of it for the consumption of people living outside Newark. Witness, Brick City, Sundance's long look at the mayor. The Booker story even folds in on itself. Brick City chronicled on film facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's unprecedented $100 million gift to Newark, announced on Oprah (with Chris Christie along to suck up glory). Oprah herself has given millions to Newark. Booker's managed to create a narrative that has some strength; a city lifting itself by attracting the rest of world to find business opportunity, reason to invest - including Oprah money and facebook money - and reason to rethink Newark.
But little of that matters to Newark residents if their streets aren't safe and their children are afraid - and worse, if the city's young are doing its violence. Good to see even symbolic efforts like the one today; it can be meaningful. Good to see the teamwork in officers, like that chronicled in Star-Ledger's in-depth coverage of a ride-along with the Essex County Homicide Squad, with as the Ledger describes a team on endless assignment on the front lines of society's nightmares: domestic violence that ends in murder, child abuse that ends in murder, robberies and rapes that end in murder, gang warfare with firepower designed more for the war in Afghanistan than our city streets. Police Director Sam DeMaio discussed the seizures of illegal guns this month during the nomination ceremony for Police Chief Sheilah Coley, the first woman police chief in the history of the state's largest force.
The conduct of police is complicated by the layoff earlier this year of 167 police officers. A spike in crime came after, within months, including a day last month when 13 people were shot, one killed.
There are signs of real commitment to change, though it remains to be seen what the outcome is. DeMaio appointed a former head of IA (Coley) as police chief - that goes way beyond symbolism. The DOJ began its investigation, and is reaching out to the community in good faith. If structural reforms come out of that, the culture of the city's police force can change. That would also be more than symbolic. There are reasons to be hopeful, not the least of which is whether the toy in a child's hands makes him or her dream of shooting - or of building.
Still looming is the lack of opportunity in Newark. There are no easy solutions. We owe young people a path to fulfilling productive lives. The DOJ is not built to address this, nor the police. But performing emergency care on Newark's public safety systems may be a start to getting there. Exchange toy guns for better things, that's good. But real structural change in the culture and processes of policing in Newark is needed, and desired, in the city. That's the news we really want to report.
Disclosure: I live with a member of ACLU-NJ's board. I'd be writing this anyway. |
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