Or to put it more succinctly, "Crime is down; Healy said so!"

The post above really cuts to the core of the problem.... people are getting shot down every day here.

Yes, some are drug-revenge shootings, but others are stray bullets on a little league field and people getting guns shoved in their faces in Paulus Hook.

So the question is, can a mayor, any mayor, control crime?

The answer I believe is yes. Rudolph Guiliani did just that in a city 1 mile to the east of us that has roughly 32 times the population and that is now one of the safest in the nation.

So, what's the difference between NY and JC?

While Guiliani admitted the problem and attacked it in a competent way, our mayor and his Chief of Police say there really isn't a problem. That it's all our perception and "how we feel".

The bottom line is that the bullets keep flying even while you all clamor for Whole Foods, ....

In other words, Mayor Healy and his Chief are pissing on your legs and telling you its raining.

Not accomplishing much for Jersey City

Posted by thart May 04, 2009 07:20AM

Mayor Healy has a problem in Jersey City. You could call it his "chief problem." Chief Thomas Comey, appointed by the Mayor to lead the city's police force, has gone on record as saying the crime problem in Jersey City is merely one of perception:

"Until people feel safe, [the police] are not accomplishing much," Comey said. "So our job is to make people feel safe."

Eh - not really. Let's say the murder rate was actually declining, but people didn't "feel safe." Are the police doing their job? Of course. What if people don't feel safe because the murder rate is actually increasing? Well, not so much.

The problem for Comey is that he was speaking at a vigil to mark Jersey City's ninth homicide this year - a pace which, if continued, would bring Jersey City very close to its record of thirty-eight homicides in a single year (set way back in 2005). This doesn't count the "near misses" of people who have been injured or stray bullets that hit walls and parked cars instead of fleshy targets. It's the bottom line. And Comey doesn't seem to have an eye on it at all.

Why else would he be saying that Jersey City is a "very safe city" and that "crime is down" when we are in the midst of a revenge-murder cycle that has yet to reach its zenith? If the city is so safe, why is County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio pleading with citizens and assuring them they they don't have to be too afraid to call the police if something is happening? I'm not a super-genius or anything, but if you have a near-record pace for murder, and people are afraid to go to the park, and people are afraid to call the cops...well, it just doesn't sound like "a very safe city" at all.

Mayor Healy's re-election commercial claims that Jersey City is safer because Healy has hired more police and bought guns back from criminals on the streets. But if the murder rate is up, then what are we to make of those claims? Can we say that things would be worse if the money weren't spent? It's impossible to say. But we can say that the Mayor doesn't seem to be watching the murder rate if he thinks things are so wonderful.

The other problem Comey's remarks bring up is his insistance that seventy percent of the guns on Jersey City's streets come from out of state. The Healy Administration has invested quite a bit of time, energy, and money in defending its one-gun-per-month law. But the Chief is saying that this sort of local ordinance simply won't do anything about seventy percent of the guns out there. Exactly how are our streets safer from chasing a law that leaves seventy percent of guns untouched? Answer: They aren't.

I won't say that the Mayor isn't concerned about the murders. I'm just pointing out that his words just don't match reality. But what do you expect from someone who mashes up a press conference with Barack Obama to make it sound like Obama was endorsing Healy, when it was actually the other way around? (For the uninitiated, the person receiving the endorsement usually receive a fawning bio from the person giving it - so Healy might not have written the statement Obama is reading, but he had major input into it. Or...maybe you believe Barack Obama is a faithful observer of Jersey City politics.)

To be fair, there is no reason to believe that the rate of murders will maintain its current level throughout the year. It might go down. But it might go up, too. At this point, however, all of the money the Mayor has spent looks to reduce the number of murders by two. No matter how people feel, that's just not accomplishing much.

http://blog.nj.com/njv_thurman_hart/2 ... lishing_much_for_jer.html