Newark shootings, an aberration? We'll see

by By JOAN WHITLOW/THE STAR-LEDGER
Friday July 24, 2009, 6:24 AM

On Monday, 10 shootings in Newark left three people dead in a single day and washed away the optimism built earlier this year when the city bragged about a record drop in homicides from January to April. The effect of what happened in Newark this week was amplified by a streak of violence in Jersey City, including a shootout that left a Jersey City cop fatally wounded.

I've read through the online comments posted in reaction to the most recent violence in Newark. There are unfortunately always those who, protected by the anonymity of posting, prefer to make negative quips and generalizations about Newarkers rather than express compassion for the victims of such crimes. Those comments, I believe, are no more representative of what most people think about their fellow citizens who are under siege than the shooters are typical of most Newarkers.

Yes, it is black-on-black crime. Neighbor-against-neighbor crime. I don't know of anyone in Newark's black community who is saying anything else. The demographic profile of those doing the shooting is pretty much the same as those doing the dying. Most families are fighting to keep their kids off both lists and there are many organizations trying to do the same.

This is a battle for the lives of our young people, which makes it a battle to get rid of the guns.
The data are not as up-to-date or broken down by municipalities as I would wish, but the most recent state Department of Health figures, from 2005, said the deaths from firearms among all New Jersey youth ages 15 to 19 was 11 per 100,000, which is too high. Yet the rate for black kids the same age was a staggering 55 per 100,000.

For all New Jersey men 20 to 34, the rate of firearm deaths was 10 per 100,000, but for black New Jersey men in that age group, the rate was a staggering 110 per 100,000.

Homicide among 15- to 34-year-old black men and women in New Jersey accounted for more than 400 homicides from 2005 to 2006. That means that for young black people, the murder toll is far beyond the count for accidents, and heart disease, cancer and HIV. It is beyond all reason.

May, the cruelest month so far this year in Newark, ended with 11 homicides, compared to 14 from January to April, a record-setting start-of-the-year low for Newark. There were eight homicides last month (I'm using the Essex County prosecutor's figures) and the most recent madness brought this month's total to nine with, one more week to go.

What happened? If the credit for a downward trend in killing goes to more cops on the street and better use of police resources in Newark, what happened between May 1 and Monday?

A few weeks ago, I finally got to talk with Newark Police Director Garry McCarthy about May's numbers. The Newark Police Department was analyzing the data every which way, but nothing popped out as a trend, something that police could attack.

McCarthy works on the theory that if he can prevent a shooting, he can prevent a murder. He believes that hard enforcement of the little things, the so-called quality-of-life crimes, is key to preventing bigger crimes. Stop the guy drinking beer on the street and you often find -- as he said his cops are finding -- someone who is packing a gun, wanted on a felony warrant.

Sometimes, what you find is a guy drinking beer. McCarthy doesn't like it when I say "so-called" quality-of-life crimes. But while I can't be sure about how the guy drinking a beer ultimately affects things, I have no doubt that murder, assault and other felonies can mess mightily with your quality of life.

The NPD deserves credit for making changes that have put the homicide rate and overall violent crime rate on a downward trend. I pray that keeps up and that what happened Monday is an aberration, not an indicator of things to come. I worry that recent events might lead to the kind of policing that is really harassment and provides a good recruiting tool for those trying to convince young people that the police and the law are the enemies.

Newark and Essex County have to keep up the progress they've made in improving investigations and prosecutions -- which means protecting witnesses, who are often the targets of violence -- so the shooters don't think, as they had a right to think in the past, that the odds are on their side when it comes to getting caught and going away for a long time.

Good parenting? Good schools and teaching? Steadfast efforts to redirect kids from the streets to productive things? Instilling in them early a mandate to consider their lives and those of everyone around them as precious? Figuring out how to give those who get into a little trouble a second chance that keeps them out of lethal trouble?

Do all that, too -- and get the guns off the streets.