Removing barriers was a good first step. There's more to do for Paterson police | Our view
3-minute read
- New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin must engage in earnest dialogue with Paterson residents about their desires for police reform.
- Elected officials in Trenton and Washington must help secure resources required to enact meaningful reform at the Paterson Police Department.
- New leadership at the Paterson Police Department must fundamentally change its approach and direction.
Moments before New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin appeared on the steps Paterson’s Frank X. Graves Jr. Public Safety Complex on Monday afternoon — to announce his office’s takeover of the troubled Paterson Police Department — city workers cleared away steel crowd-control barriers.
The barriers had stood along Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Way for nearly three weeks. They were first erected days after the fatal police shooting of Najee Seabrooks, a violence intervention specialist for the Paterson Healing Collective who died after an hours-long standoff in a Mill Street apartment on March 3.
The barriers had held back demonstrators, who marched on police headquarters multiple times in the days after Seabrooks’ death as a city once again grappled with the death of a Black man at the hands of its police department.
We are glad those barriers are now gone — and we hope that their removal will serve as a metaphor for a new era of stewardship of the Paterson Police Department.
As we wrote on March 10, the Paterson Police Department needs change. Its litany of troubles only seems to grow longer. Seabrooks’ death was just the latest crisis for the department — it remains cloaked in the long shadows of the “robbery squad” scandal, the disappearance of Felix DeJesus and the Jameek Lowery case — among other significant problems, including multiple accusations of excessive force in recent years and record highs for shootings and homicides.
Activists and advocates — including from the Healing Collective and the New Jersey Institute of Social Justice — had called for federal intervention. For now, though, the work of trying to right the stymied ship that is the Paterson police force is in Platkin’s hands.
We know those hands are full and will remain so for the weeks and months ahead.
Advice for Platkin
Mr. Attorney General, allow us, if you may, to offer some advice as you start the arduous task before you.
As we wrote earlier this month, these must be the top priorities for the new leadership of the Paterson Police Department:
- Convene soon with city leaders and leaders in the activist community — including the Paterson Healing Collective to start a process of listening, healing and collaboration. We would welcome an opportunity to convene such a session.
- Appeal to leaders in Trenton and Washington now for badly-needed resources to bolster recruitment and the department's capacity to respond to crime. The hotspots in the 4th Ward and elsewhere in Paterson are intolerable and have to be eradicated, likely with the help of state and federal law enforcement agencies. Appeal to those colleagues now for their urgent help.
- Consider new alternatives to how the department is functionally organized and operated that are better suited to a diverse and increasingly dynamic community.
These priorities stand, Mr. Attorney General.
That said, we know you will need help on each front. Let us be more specific:
Conversations with advocates and city leaders
It’s very clear that the Healing Collective and its parent, St. Joseph’s University Medical Center, should be engaged in any efforts to build new trust between the police and the broader Paterson community. St. Joseph's Health President Kevin Slavin, who expressed concern that the St. Joe’s Crisis Intervention Team was not called during the fatal standoff with Seabrooks, must surely be engaged in conversation about productive ways forward.
So, too, can be the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice. Former Attorney General John Farmer Jr. and former United States Attorney Paul Fishman both sit on the institute's board and surely can be resources — if they are not already.
Mayor Andre Sayegh and members of the City Council, absent from your Monday announcement, also have roles to play. Mayor and members of council, we know this takeover is uncomfortable. Still, we advise you to lean in and help the attorney general however you can.
Finally, Mr. Attorney General, we advise you and your staff to embark on a listening tour, stopping in each of Paterson’s wards to connect with the city’s citizens. Their concerns must be heard directly.
Appeal to state, federal leaders
Gov. Phil Murphy, Rep. Bill Pacrell Jr., Sen. Cory Booker and Sen. Bob Menendez — as well as Paterson’s representatives in the state Assembly and state Senate in Trenton — Attorney General Platkin needs your help, too.
Resources are badly needed to solve some of the Paterson Police Department’s problems. As our columnist, Mike Kelly, wrote, the PPD deserves the fully-allowable complement of 439 officers. It also needs investment in community policing initiatives, equipment and, surely, morale.
Governor, Congressman, senators and Trenton representatives, it’s time to step up for Paterson.
A new approach for the PPD
Mr. Attorney General, we look forward to meeting and knowing Isa Abbassi, the veteran New York Police Department chief who will assume command of the Paterson Police in May.
Chief Abbassi will need to move quickly to assess training regimens — particularly as they pertain to community policing, emergency response and rank-and-file officers' interactions with emotionally disturbed people. Another top priority, of course, will be to reconsider the use of force — lethal and non-lethal.
Abbassi will have to work to move rank-and-file officers into all manner of new approaches — but we hope he'll do so in a way that enables officers to work toward healing a weary city. We look forward to future dialogue on specific approaches, but suffice to say that Paterson cops need to do more to build trust across the city they work to protect.
And finally, we will hold new leadership accountable for new levels of transparency that Paterson residents urgently require. Some form of civilian complaint review board is nothing short of essential.
Mr. Attorney General, you removed the physical barriers erected at police headquarters. Now comes the hard work — removing the real barriers that hold back the policing Paterson deserves.