Forum Aims for Peace in City

Panelists at a community forum Thursday named body cameras, ongoing training and more interaction with the community as elements to keep peace in Plainfield as national protests spread over police shootings of unarmed civilians.

"Our focus tonight is moving forward," Rev. Rufus McClendon Jr. said as about 150 residents gathered at Shiloh Baptist Church..

McLendon moderated the program, which included remarks by Shiloh pastor Dr. Gerald Lamont Thomas, Mayor Adrian O. Mapp, Plainfield Police Director Carl Riley, Rutgers University student Analis Rivera, Omega Psi Phi chapter president Byron Ward, Lts. Troy Edwards and Craig Venson of the Plainfield Police Division, U.S. Assistant Attorney Dara Govan and Chaplain Gary Holden.

Thomas said people must stand in solidarity for the shooting victims.

"The wrongdoers and guilty must be held accountable," he said. "It's time to take a stand. We can't wait any longer."

Mapp also spoke of the urgency felt after the grand jury outcomes in Ferguson, Miss. and Staten Island, N.Y. He said when he took office in January , public safety was "job number one" for him.

"We cannot afford to wait until something happens in Plainfield," he said. "We have to be proactive."

Riley said city police officers have already been mandated to get out of patrol cars "to hear the voices of the community." He called patrol car cameras "obsolete" as they cannot capture an officer into a building and said he is discussing the possibility of acquiring body cameras. Venson and Edwards advocated training beyond the initial police academy courses.

Govan compared the need for better relationships between police and the community to an unhappy marriage where a break-up forces the need to learn co-parenting.

"Like any other marriage, we have to learn how to communicate," she said.

She also called for periodic re-evalutions of officers who may be affected by all the negative things they experience over time.

"Let's work together and make this a happy family," she said.

Holden had another means of helping officers through difficult situations, by having local clergy work with police who must notify families of deaths or respond to domestic violence situations. As chaplains, clergy can stay on with the families while police respond to other calls. He said he has spent as much as seven or eight hours with a grieving family. His team of 14 chaplains in Vineland acts as case managers for young people who are arrested and assign them community service, he said.

Holden said he wanted to help Plainfield start a similar program.

Rivera said she wanted to be "a voice for youth" and to share what she had seen on campus and around New Brunswick.

Although some panelists alluded to the victims of police shootings, McLendon asked members of the public to pose questions specific to Plainfield and its future and not to rehash the tragedies. About 17 residents spoke, though not all asked questions until prodded.

In answer to what is being done for youth and are there any community centers, Mapp named Washington and Emerson schools as community centers and said the Recreation Division under the leadership of Superintendent Roni Taylor had started a number of new programs. he said a new city recreation trust fund will help improve facilities for young people.

When a resident complained he never sees white police officers at youth sports events, Govan gave a phone number by which she said law enforcement staff could be invited to events.

Riley answered concerns about use of force by saying laws vary by state, but New Jersey was on the cutting edge..

Regarding how to teach young people what to do when stopped by police, Ward said the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) has a workshop at Second Street Youth Center on that subject. Mapp called for reactivation of the Youth for Action Movement (YAM), a local group, and also said there should be a presidential commission on the subject.

Another speaker suggested the guidelines should be written on a handout in Spanish and English or even on a refrigerator magnet as a reference.

Thomas concluded by announcing a youth basketball tournament and said of the forum, "We will do this again and again and again." To a speaker with a new job in the city who asked whether he should move his family here, Thomas said, "It's safe in Plainfield, New Jersey."

--Bernice