Fears of Regression as Newark Police Force Is Cut
Matt Rainey for The New York Times
Ramon Tabera, a grocery clerk in Newark who was shot during a robbery at work in 2005, questioned the city’s layoff of about 13 percent of its police force.
By KAREEM FAHIM
NEWARK — For Ramon Tabera, the news that this city was laying off 163 police officers brought back memories of the pain in his left knee and right ankle, where he was shot five years ago during a nighttime robbery at a grocery store where he works.
Matt Rainey for The New York Times
Kimble Wright, a teacher, second from left, said the layoffs were because of a city government that was spending more than it had.
Matt Rainey for The New York Times
Police officers entering the 5th Precinct station house in Newark on Wednesday, when one officer, Kelvin Barnett, turned in his gun and badge.
“It’s bad,” Mr. Tabera said Wednesday as he stocked shelves, adding, “A lot of police is a good thing.”
A day after Mayor Cory A. Booker announced that the city was laying off roughly 13 percent of its police force, residents battered by decades of runaway crime and stampeding blight raised the specter of the bad old days.
For some that went back as far as the 1970s, when residents abandoned Newark in droves. That was before Mr. Booker, who was elected in 2006, promised to focus on bringing the city’s crime rate down, an effort he pursued with early success: the murder rate fell for two years in a row, and one calendar month last spring there was not a single killing, something that had not happened since the 1960s.
But there has been a rise in crime rates this year, and in the neighborhoods surrounding the grocery store where Mr. Tabera stocked shelves on Wednesday afternoon, the murder rate has nearly doubled since last year.
On Wednesday, as officers continued to turn in their badges and guns at police stations and the Guardian Angels offered to help patrol the streets, citizens, police officers and politicians wrestled with the consequences of a depleted police force.
Mr. Booker acknowledged the perception problem caused by the layoffs, but said that any comparison to the past was unfounded. The city spent years streamlining and modernizing the department, he said, an effort that helped reduce the rate of shootings. “It was a very bad week — there’s no doubt about it,” Mr. Booker said. “This is not something anyone could choose, but it’s not going to stop our momentum.”
Newark’s police director, Garry F. McCarthy, said by consolidating or reorganizing departments the city would be able to keep enough officers on the streets. But some of the cuts were more painful: last month, anticipating the layoffs, the department suspended Operation Impact, a program that deploys officers in high-crime areas.
“It’s disappointing,” Mr. McCarthy said. “It was totally avoidable.”
The layoffs came after Mr. Booker, trying to close an $83 million budget shortfall, was unable to wrest nearly $10 million in concessions from Newark’s largest police union, the Fraternal Order of Police.
During a protracted dispute, the union accused the city of negotiating in bad faith, while Mr. Booker said the union rejected even modest concessions. The union president, Derrick Hatcher, did not return calls seeking comment.
Cities across New Jersey have resorted to similar layoffs, their hands forced by falling tax collections, cuts in state aid and rising expenses. On Tuesday, the State Civil Service Commission approved Camden’s plan to lay off 383 of the city’s 1,100 employees, the deepest cuts in any major municipality. One-third of the Fire Department jobs would be eliminated, along with about half of the police force, which had been spared in previous cuts. All nonuniform city employees are already on unpaid furlough one day a week.
Camden’s layoffs would take effect Jan. 18, and city officials say there is still time to reduce the number if the unions will agree to concessions, but so far the unions have refused.
Trenton has sent layoff notices to about 400 city workers, and Atlantic City has laid off 60 police officers.
The layoffs in Newark represented the deepest cuts to the Police Department in decades. The number of layoffs cited by the city did not include four officers who had passed the civil service exam but had not been hired, Mr. Booker said, adding that he hoped to rehire the officers. One veteran police officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for the department, said belt-tightening and reorganization was already causing hardship in Newark’s police districts.
He said the number of detectives in one high-crime district had been cut in half, leaving the remaining detectives overburdened and falling behind on their caseloads. “Without detectives, you’re not solving crimes. You got guys out on patrol responding and no one to back them up. The quality of investigations is not going to be there.”
The Police Department acknowledged what they said were temporary staffing shortages, but said that the headcount in individual police districts would be maintained.
That did nothing to soothe nerves on the streets of Newark on Wednesday — or calm the anger at the political establishment. At lunchtime at Je’s Restaurant in downtown Newark, Kimble Wright, 42, a teacher, said the layoffs were caused by a city government spending beyond its means. “We have enjoyed a lifestyle that cannot be maintained,” he said. “I think we’re coming back to the fundamentals, when block associations used to do the jobs that we hired police to do.”
Angel Williams, 32, who sat nearby and works in child care, said she feared a return to the lawlessness of the 1970s. “I think it’s going to get really bad without more cops,” she said. “If they take them away, who’s going to protect us?”
In the morning’s pouring rain, Kelvin Barnett, 26, who joined the Police Department in 2008, left a precinct stationhouse after turning in his gun and badge. He had been on vacation when news of the layoffs — including his — came. He filed for unemployment on Tuesday.
Mr. Barnett, born and raised in Newark, said he had loved being a police officer and still hoped to find work in his city or another one. He said he and his out-of-work colleagues were worried about being civilians again and living among men they had arrested. And while he was disappointed at the layoffs, he refused to point fingers at either the city or the union.
“I guess people didn’t try hard enough,” he said. “It feels like cutting public safety should be the last resort.”
A day after Mayor Cory A. Booker announced that the city was laying off roughly 13 percent of its police force, residents battered by decades of runaway crime and stampeding blight raised the specter of the bad old days.
For some that went back as far as the 1970s, when residents abandoned Newark in droves. That was before Mr. Booker, who was elected in 2006, promised to focus on bringing the city’s crime rate down, an effort he pursued with early success: the murder rate fell for two years in a row, and one calendar month last spring there was not a single killing, something that had not happened since the 1960s.
But there has been a rise in crime rates this year, and in the neighborhoods surrounding the grocery store where Mr. Tabera stocked shelves on Wednesday afternoon, the murder rate has nearly doubled since last year.
On Wednesday, as officers continued to turn in their badges and guns at police stations and the Guardian Angels offered to help patrol the streets, citizens, police officers and politicians wrestled with the consequences of a depleted police force.
Mr. Booker acknowledged the perception problem caused by the layoffs, but said that any comparison to the past was unfounded. The city spent years streamlining and modernizing the department, he said, an effort that helped reduce the rate of shootings. “It was a very bad week — there’s no doubt about it,” Mr. Booker said. “This is not something anyone could choose, but it’s not going to stop our momentum.”
Newark’s police director, Garry F. McCarthy, said by consolidating or reorganizing departments the city would be able to keep enough officers on the streets. But some of the cuts were more painful: last month, anticipating the layoffs, the department suspended Operation Impact, a program that deploys officers in high-crime areas.
“It’s disappointing,” Mr. McCarthy said. “It was totally avoidable.”
The layoffs came after Mr. Booker, trying to close an $83 million budget shortfall, was unable to wrest nearly $10 million in concessions from Newark’s largest police union, the Fraternal Order of Police.
During a protracted dispute, the union accused the city of negotiating in bad faith, while Mr. Booker said the union rejected even modest concessions. The union president, Derrick Hatcher, did not return calls seeking comment.
Cities across New Jersey have resorted to similar layoffs, their hands forced by falling tax collections, cuts in state aid and rising expenses. On Tuesday, the State Civil Service Commission approved Camden’s plan to lay off 383 of the city’s 1,100 employees, the deepest cuts in any major municipality. One-third of the Fire Department jobs would be eliminated, along with about half of the police force, which had been spared in previous cuts. All nonuniform city employees are already on unpaid furlough one day a week.
Camden’s layoffs would take effect Jan. 18, and city officials say there is still time to reduce the number if the unions will agree to concessions, but so far the unions have refused.
Trenton has sent layoff notices to about 400 city workers, and Atlantic City has laid off 60 police officers.
The layoffs in Newark represented the deepest cuts to the Police Department in decades. The number of layoffs cited by the city did not include four officers who had passed the civil service exam but had not been hired, Mr. Booker said, adding that he hoped to rehire the officers. One veteran police officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for the department, said belt-tightening and reorganization was already causing hardship in Newark’s police districts.
He said the number of detectives in one high-crime district had been cut in half, leaving the remaining detectives overburdened and falling behind on their caseloads. “Without detectives, you’re not solving crimes. You got guys out on patrol responding and no one to back them up. The quality of investigations is not going to be there.”
The Police Department acknowledged what they said were temporary staffing shortages, but said that the headcount in individual police districts would be maintained.
That did nothing to soothe nerves on the streets of Newark on Wednesday — or calm the anger at the political establishment. At lunchtime at Je’s Restaurant in downtown Newark, Kimble Wright, 42, a teacher, said the layoffs were caused by a city government spending beyond its means. “We have enjoyed a lifestyle that cannot be maintained,” he said. “I think we’re coming back to the fundamentals, when block associations used to do the jobs that we hired police to do.”
Angel Williams, 32, who sat nearby and works in child care, said she feared a return to the lawlessness of the 1970s. “I think it’s going to get really bad without more cops,” she said. “If they take them away, who’s going to protect us?”
In the morning’s pouring rain, Kelvin Barnett, 26, who joined the Police Department in 2008, left a precinct stationhouse after turning in his gun and badge. He had been on vacation when news of the layoffs — including his — came. He filed for unemployment on Tuesday.
Mr. Barnett, born and raised in Newark, said he had loved being a police officer and still hoped to find work in his city or another one. He said he and his out-of-work colleagues were worried about being civilians again and living among men they had arrested. And while he was disappointed at the layoffs, he refused to point fingers at either the city or the union.
“I guess people didn’t try hard enough,” he said. “It feels like cutting public safety should be the last resort.”
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