We won’t get police brutality justice in Jersey City without civilian power in PD

Donate to the Walk 4 Change

Get Involved with the Walk 4 Change

Jersey City officials have a knack for observing the same thing the public sees, but describing something different. We saw it most recently at a May 6, 2020 press conference dismissing eyewitness videos of police violence on Bostwick Avenue. The recordings, which appear to show Jersey City police officers beating two young Black men already on the ground, had sparked immediate and powerful outcry from Jersey City residents, civil rights activists, and faith leaders alarmed by what they saw.

The Bostwick footage is both shaky and disturbing. It features one man curled into a ball, arms shielding his head; a second man lying on the sidewalk beneath an overturned chair; and a Jersey City police officer striking them both with a baton. The steady whip of the weapon is audible, as is one woman pleading, “He’s just a teenager.”

Less than 24 hours later, city officials held a press conference countering there was nothing on Bostwick for Jersey City to see. Mayor Steven Fulop dismissed evidence “where they can doctor and edit videos on social media”. Police Chief Michael Kelly said “the officers acted with great restraint.” Public Safety Director James Shea concluded that, “I don’t see anything that is against those officers’ training or their legal right to defend themselves.” The head of Jersey City’s police officers union claimed the video showed “police lives were at risk”. The Police Department has stated that no more information will be released to the public “as this is an Internal Affairs investigation”.

How can the community trust a subsequent “independent investigation” after the city’s leadership already exonerated the officers? The question answers itself: we can’t. After years of stalled public-record requests, millions of dollars in police misconduct settlement payouts, and broken faith in the department’s commitment to protect every resident equally, we shouldn’t.

Instead, we need a powerful, independent Civilian Complaint Review Board.

Public inquiry into Jersey City police misconduct is consistently met with the official line that police will “take it from here” — usually through internal affairs investigations conducted behind a veil of secrecy that produce no observable justice. Our current civilian “advisory” committee has no power to investigate, prevent, or create consequences for abuse. And no amount of trainings or community-relations campaigns can replace the one democratic value JCPD internal investigations currently lack: transparency.

• The JCPD recorded 206 excessive-force complaints against Jersey City police officers between 2013 and 2019. It had sustained only two.

• After firing at least 22 gunshots at young Black residents who were playing with fireworks during last year’s Fourth of July season, several officers from the scene did not submit their own use-of-force reports until over two months after the shooting.

• A 16-month investigation for NJ Advance Media into New Jersey police departments’ use of force found in 2018 that a Black person in Jersey City is 489% more likely to have force used on them than a white person; that Jersey City police officers used baton strikes at almost five times the state average; that the fact that officers self-report use of force meant that some “forms were so sloppy the officers accidentally marked themselves as dead.” The Jersey City Department of Public Safety failed to provide all its use-of-force forms to NJ Advance Media’s public records request, and was “unable to say how many were missing, where they were or if they existed at all”.In the sustained outcry for justice following George Floyd’s murder at the hands of police officers — after years and decades and centuries of Black and brown people’s abuse by untouchable enforcers — it is ludicrous to claim that either the City of Jersey City or its Police Department is exempt from institutional corruption and systemic racism. It is time to stop talking and bring immediate legislation creating the accountability that our communities and police department need. We propose an urgent municipal ordinance enacting a Civilian Complaint Review Board with the power to investigate police misconduct, to impact police policy, and to hold police officers responsible for their actions. Many ineffective CCRBs — including the one that fielded at least 17 previous misconduct complaints for the Minneapolis officer who eventually killed George Floyd — are figureheads, powerless to effect change, issuing statement after statement into a void. Jersey City has the talent and resources to make this board not another ineffective political gesture, but a state and national model by incorporating these six steps:

• The majority of the Civilian Complaint Review Board’s members must be nominated by independent social and racial justice organizations, and the board as a whole must reflect the racial and economic diversity of Jersey City. These will not be another set of Hudson County political buddy appointees. Board nominees should have demonstrated experience in a relevant field (e.g. civil rights; social work; legal work; academia) that will enable them to carry out investigative duties, and should be provided with further training. Board nominees must not have current ties to the Jersey City Police Department or to Jersey City government, and the majority of the board must not have a law enforcement background.

• The Board must have genuine, independent investigatory power, including subpoena power. Without access to evidence, the Review Board will not be able to create transparency and uncover corruption. The Board must be given subpoena power to interview both witnesses and officers, and to review evidentiary documents, while still protecting the privacy of both the officers and the civilians.

• The Board’s recommendations must guarantee disciplinary follow-through from Jersey City Police Department authorities. According to former ACLU-NJ Executive Director Udi Ofer, “In 2012, the NYPD followed the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board’s (CCRB’s) recommendation in only 25 of 258 cases (9.7%)”. Instead — as the ACLU has recommended and Newark has since adopted — the Jersey City Civilian Complaint Review Board’s findings should be binding on police department leadership, who may choose disciplinary action from a pre-negotiated list of punishments agreed generally appropriate to each type of offense.

• The Board must have broad audit power to investigate troubling larger patterns in JCPD policy and behavior — for example, consistent discrepancies in call response time by neighborhood or of racial discrepancy in enforcing minor offenses.

• The Board’s funding must be protected from political retaliation by setting it as a fixed percentage of the Department of Public Safety’s own budget.

• The Board must be both accessible and accountable to the public. Jersey City residents should be able to contact the Board easily and through multiple means. The Board should also report its findings quarterly and make public statistics about complaints, demographics of complainants, status and findings of investigations, and actions taken.
  

There are those, including Mayor Fulop, who advise Jersey City to wait to pass a CCRB until Trenton acts. We disagree. By passing the strongest CCRB in the nation, Jersey City will send Trenton a clear message: Pass legislation to authorize our board or demonstrate that all your support for police reform is phony.

Truth breeds trust. We believe in a Jersey City where every police officer is accountable, not merely behind closed doors, but among the communities they serve. We believe a democratic, qualified Civilian Review Board — one with real follow-through and ability to effect departmental change — can build trust far beyond that of an occasional high-five photo or pickup basketball game. And despite police unions’ fight against accountability measures in Newark, we believe Jersey City can lead by example as part of the growing movement urging State legislators to open all police departments to civilian oversight.

When strengthened by already-respected, already-trusted community representatives, and empowered not merely to observe but to change police misconduct, a Civilian Review Board’s word can build that trust between Jersey City’s neighborhoods and Jersey City’s many hard-working cops.

By JAMES SOLOMON, PAMELA JOHNSON, AMOL SINAH, FRANK GILMORE, ASHEENIA JOHNSON and CHRIS GADSDEN

James Solomon is Jersey City’s Ward E councilman. Pamela Johnson is executive director of the Jersey City Anti-Violence Coalition. Amol Sinah is the ACLU NJ executive director. Frank Gilmore is a community activist in Jersey City. Asheenia Johnson is a Jersey City community activist. Chris Gadsden is a former Ward B councilman.