Last week Mayor Bret Schundler asked Police Chief William Thynne to resign from his post with the Police Department because of what was called poor allocation of resources. As the matter was left to the City Council to decide at its regularly scheduled meeting last Wednesday, a hearing has been scheduled for this week to hear more on the rather sticky situation. The hearing should play out much like arbitration hearings in Major League Baseball: the chief will be given the opportunity to present his argument as to why he should hold onto his job, while his superior officer, Police Director Michael Moriarty, will join other officials in countering Thynne’s argument before the council. Schundler has nominated Deputy Director Jeff Shamburg to replace Thynne. As of press time, it was not announced whether the hearing would be open to the public or held behind closed doors. Because of the sensitive nature of the topics discussed, indications are the hearing will be in private. The mayor’s chief of staff, Tom Gallagher, said last week that there was no surprise in the council’s decision to conduct a hearing. “For some council people this is just about politics,” Gallagher said. “But for others, there are legitimate policy questions that they want to be able to understand before they cast a vote. They want to know more about the problems.” Gallagher said that a difference in opinion over officer deployment in the Neighborhood Task Force is at the core of this whirlwind. Mayor Schundler is a firm advocate of the NTF, while Thynne apparently is not in favor with loading officers into the program and taking away from other divisions of the force. Shamburg, a Jersey City native and 20-year veteran of its police force, is also a wholehearted advocate of the NTF, which he said can bring the public and the police closer as a community. “Community policing is where we’re headed,” Shamburg told The Reporter this week. “It’s the difference between being proactive and reactive.” Under Shamburg’s plan, the NTF would encompass almost every police officer in the city assigned to a specific area of town. “I’m a firm believer in community relations,” Shamburg said. The Jersey City Police were subject to an outcry recently when 15-year old Michael Anglin was shot to death in January after a botched car theft. Other police forces have been coping with brutality and murder cases of their own. Many people have said that police are not in tune with the public and there is a great divide between the men in blue and the communities they serve and protect. “People want to see improvements in their quality of life,” Shamburg said. “People want to know who their police officers are. Now we have a golden opportunity. We have more officers available for street patrol than ever.” Like Schundler, Shamburg said that funneling officers into the NTF from other beats will add to the quality of policing that the force can do. If a community is familiar with what it takes to be a cop and the police are sensitive to the needs and issues within a neighborhood, the end result would be beneficial to all parties. “The cops have to get to know the community they work in,” Shamburg said. “The most revered cops are the ones known by the community.” Additionally, with the same officers patrolling the same area each day, Shamburg said that there is an increased sense of responsibility. Shamburg said that all too often, while he was the Commander of the North District from 1991-1993, he would often assign the same task over and over again to several different officers. Under the NTF plan, he would have to only assign one officer to get the job done, and if it was not carried out, he would know who failed to do their job. At present, Shamburg and the mayor both agree that the NTF program is not running at its full potential, though the city has been better with it than without. Also playing into the house of cards that may just tumble on Wednesday is the idea that Thynne was fired because of an investigation he is conducting into the matter of City Hall shredding five-year-old police overtime records. City Hall has said they have copies of all records that were shredded. “It’s going to be a three-ring circus,” one council member said.
Our Digital Archive from 2000 – 2016
