As the city reeled from the surge in violence, council members stood side by side at a noon press conference to denounce the crime and ask residents to unite with them to make the city safer and prevent more deaths.
TRENTON — Scrambling to find solutions to the city’s latest rash of shootings, stabbings and killings, city council members, Mayor Tony Mack and Police Director Ralph Rivera Jr. offered a range of strategies to combat crime yesterday, including appealing to the governor for more money to hire cops, imposing a new curfew and sending more patrols to city hot spots.
As the city reeled from the surge in violence, including two homicides this week, council members stood side by side at a noon press conference to denounce the crime and ask residents to unite with them to make the city safer and prevent more deaths.
“Silence and inaction is no longer an option,” Council President Phyllis Holly-Ward said. “Your community is how you make it and how you keep it. Clean up, stand up and speak up.”
Council members warned residents of a citywide crackdown if violence was not squelched, with Councilman George Muschal in particular advocating for a zero-tolerance policy on crime and curfews that would keep teens indoors after 10 p.m. and require bars and bodegas to close early.
Rivera was asked about his department’s response to the latest crime wave as he walked into a budget hearing yesterday afternoon, and he gave a brief preview of a new policing plan Mack has said will be unveiled next week.
“Right now, we’ll be saturating those areas where violence has been occurring to decrease the level of violence we’ve been experiencing these past weeks,” Rivera said. “We’re going to put all our resources, local, state and federal, to attack these areas.”
Rivera said he met with Mercer County Assistant Prosecutor Angelo Onofri recently to secure more county manpower, but said he would not support a citywide curfew. The most recent violence has been concentrated in the northwest section of the city “and I’m not going to punish the whole city with a curfew,” he said.
Council members were asked at their news conference if police had lost control of the streets, and Holly-Ward quickly answered no. But Muschal said the department’s depleted ranks could not keep up with the sheer number of shootings, assaults and other crimes being called in.
“If you say you’re going to stop every crime, you’re not going to do it, but we’re short 108 officers and that’s a problem,” he said. “I wouldn’t say they’ve lost control, but they can’t do the job. They’ve lost the ability to do the job. You can’t do more with less.”
Councilwoman Kathy McBride asked parents and community members to police their neighborhoods and their children, saying police and the government could not carry the responsibility for keeping the city safe alone.
“I am calling on the parents, the uncles and the aunts and the cousins to be more vigilant in their homes and our community,” she said. “You must take the necessary steps to go into your children’s rooms to find out what’s being brought into your homes, to talk to your children to find out who their friends are. This is just one of the steps we can take as a community.”
Councilwoman Verlina Reynolds-Jackson also announced that shuttered police substations in the East and West Ward would reopen in coming weeks.
Skeptical residents asked what exactly council could do to combat crime and what a press conference would accomplish.
“Isn’t this more of a symbolic gesture?” one woman asked.
Shortly before the news conference — and several hours before a grand jury indicted him on federal corruption charges — Mack released a letter to Gov. Chris Christie pleading for more State Police manpower or funding to hire more city officers.
In the letter Mack described how budget cuts last year forced the city to cut its police force, which has consequently been unable to suppress the rise in violence. The city has attempted to “improve the efficiency” of the smaller police department but the changes have not been sufficient, he wrote.
“While some of these changes have had moderate success it has become apparent that doing more with less, from a crime suppression standpoint, is not working,” Mack wrote.
Overall crime has risen since 105 city police officers were laid off nearly 15 months ago. Some officers were later rehired, but the department has also seen a wave of retirements.
Mack asked the governor to authorize a permanent battalion of troopers from the State Police to work with the city police. The letter also requested additional public safety dollars beyond Trenton’s requested transitional aid award so the city can hire an additional 60 to 75 officers, mostly for the patrol bureau.
Council members said they sent their own letter to the governor asking for a sit-down meeting last week but had yet to receive a response. At a council meeting last night, residents scoffed at Mack’s request for help.
“Nobody’s giving an indicted mayor nothing,” Tracey Syphax said. “We can march on the Statehouse all we want, but we’re not getting anything.”
Staff writer Jenna Pizzi contributed to this report.
Contact Erin Duffy at (609) 989-5723 or eduffy@njtimes.com.