Does the stress and scrutiny currently engulfing the New York Police Department have any bearing across the Hudson River in Hoboken? At first glance, the comparison seems laughable—the NYPD’s 49,526 employees could form their own city rivaling Hoboken’s size, should they tire of the five boroughs.
But as protests over a Staten Island grand jury’s Dec. 3 decision not to indict an NYPD officer in the choking death of Eric Garner continue to grow, it’s worth asking whether the mile-square city has the same ingredients that led to controversial deaths and subsequent tumult in New York City and in a separate case in Ferguson, Mo. In both cases, some protestors believe the deaths of the men in the course of police arrests were racially motivated.
As of this past Monday, Hoboken Police Chief Kenneth Ferrante knew of no demonstrations that had occurred in Hoboken in response to the grand jury rulings on Michael Brown in Ferguson and Garner in New York. Both Jersey City and Newark have seen protests.
However, questions about racial bias in the Hoboken Police Department remain. A recent USA Today analysis of FBI arrest data from 2011-12 found that the Hoboken Police Department’s arrest rate for black individuals was 11.2 times higher than its non-black arrest rate, the greatest disparity of any department in Hudson County. By comparison, the ratio of the black arrest rate to the non-black arrest rate in Ferguson was 2.81.
“One deviant act by somebody can create a volatile situation.”—Kenneth Ferrante
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No shootings
While the HPD doesn’t have a particular reputation for brutality—Ferrante couldn’t recall a single shooting by city police in his 21 years on the force— he said the potential for escalating unrest is always there.
“One deviant act by somebody can create a volatile situation,” said Ferrante, who took over as chief on Dec. 1. “The only way to address that is if you have strong relationships with your community groups of all types [so] you’re able to pick up the phone and say ‘we had this situation. Can you help me and let’s try to come to a resolution?’ ”
Does Ferrante feel he has such people in his Rolodex at the moment? “I think I have some relationships I have fostered as a police commander and by being a resident in this town, but it needs to grow,” he said.
If the worst were to happen, the HPD would rely on its ties to the community to retain order. All Hoboken police officers are required to live in the city at the time they are hired, and many are lifelong residents like Ferrante. Through the Officer Next Door program, six live in the Housing Authority itself, though Ferrante said there has been significant turnover and the program needs further analysis.
Community outreach is a cornerstone of the changes Ferrante plans to make as chief, and could become crucial if a contentious incident occurs involving one or more of his officers.
“We have seen situations nationwide right now that made turns for the worse,” said Ferrante at his swearing in ceremony two weeks ago, “and a great part of that is relationships weren’t fostered before the events happened.”
Part of this community-focused approach is to reinstitute bike patrols, which will make officers more approachable, according to Ferrante. Interim chief Edelmiro Garcia, who led the HPD from July through November, also supported the initiative, and training has already begun.
Where “broken windows” policing attempts to make raw arrest numbers for low-level crimes the currency of a successful department, community policing measures success in relationships forged and information gained.
Watching the watchers
Ferrante said he is open to the use of body-worn cameras by Hoboken police officers, a step that has been advocated by civil rights activists nationally. The main benefit of body cameras, he said, is giving “true accounts” of interactions between police and the public.
Ferrante said video evidence could aid in the prosecution of the drunken brawlers sometimes found in Hoboken bars.
“Three days later when that individual is in a suit and acting all proper and professional,” said Ferrante, “I believe it will help the officer to show the conduct they were dealing with when they arrived.”
Equally as clear, though, are the potent privacy questions arising from the recording of sensitive situations like domestic violence disputes or suicide attempts. “Most police cameras are available to OPRA” state public records requests, said Ferrante. “We have to wait to see from the AG’s office of how we’re going to best utilize them and hold the data and release the data from it.”
As of last week, 54 New York City police officers have been outfitted with body cameras as part of a pilot program, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop hopes to place cameras on all of his officers as early as next year, and is currently working on a joint purchasing program with Newark and Paterson.
On Dec. 1, President Barack Obama requested $75 million from Congress to fund the purchase of 50,000 body-worn cameras for local police departments nationwide.
Given all the action surrounding body-worn cameras on the local and federal level, Ferrante expects the New Jersey Attorney General to issue a directive on them soon.
“I support the use of body cameras to protect both the public and our police officers,” said Mayor Dawn Zimmer in a statement. “Cameras can help reassure the public that police are always acting professionally and protect officers from false accusations. We will look to learn from the experiences of departments across the country that have been using body cameras and our neighbors including New York City and Jersey City which are launching new programs to help address questions regarding privacy, procedures, and technology.”
Before body-worn cameras, Hoboken must outfit its vehicles with dashcams. Only a handful of city cruisers are currently equipped, but a new state law requires that every police car purchased new or used after March 2015 and used in traffic stops must have a camera.
Crunching the numbers
Ferrante, who was sworn in on Dec. 1, suggested that the 2012 statistics about the ratios of black arrests may have been an aberration. At the time, he said, the HPD had stepped up its policing in the area surrounding the city’s public housing projects as the express request of the housing director and his tenants.
“A large amount of those arrests,” explained Ferrante, “were out-of-town people that were coming into the Hoboken Housing Authority area either doing disorderly behavior or being involved in criminal behavior.”
Out of 1,035 arrests in Hoboken in 2012, said Ferrante, only one triggered a false arrest complaint.
A calculation of the black and non-black arrest rates for 2011 alone, based on information provided to The Hoboken Reporter by the FBI, showed a similar ratio of 10.5. Data for 2013 and 2014 are not yet available.
Ferrante emphasized that the intent of his department is to treat everyone equally and fairly. “We have to approach policing for everyone, whether it’s enforcement with arrests or with our community outreach,” he said.
Connecting with the community
Hoboken’s community policing efforts were best seen through the Community Policing Unit, a citywide program initiated in the 1980s. Ferrante served in the unit in the late 2000s, walking a 30-square block beat daily, according to an NJ.com article at the time.
The Community Policing Unit even hosted an afterschool program and toy drives while Ferrante was with it. But gradually, the program was consolidated and finally disbanded in 2010.
“After 9/11,” Ferrante noted, “federal funding understandably started going towards more Department of Homeland Security issues and funding for community policing went away.”
Those national shifts coincided with local budget pressures, crystallized in the 2010 police reorganization that saw Ferrante temporarily demoted for financial reasons. As a part of that restructuring, a police bureau was created within the Hoboken Housing Authority [HHA] with four officers and one supervisor, all paid for by the agency itself.
This past March, however, the HHA cancelled its $540,000 contract with the city for above baseline police services due to their own budgetary pressures.
At least one Hoboken squad car continues to patrol the Housing Authority area both by car and on foot every shift, according to Ferrante, but police no longer do vertical sweeps of the buildings themselves.
“When any agency wants specific police officers devoted to just their properties,” Ferrante explained, “there has to be a cost factor.”
Carlo Davis may be reached at cdavis@hudsonreporter.com.