The Trenton Times published the following editorial on March 21, 2013. To read the full article, click here.

Editorial: In city led by indicted mayor, Trenton’s crime problems remain top concern

By Times of Trenton Editorial Board 
on March 21, 2013 at 6:42 AM, updated March 21, 2013 at 6:43 AM

To paraphrase a former Secretary of Defense, you fight crime with the police force you have, not the department you wish you had.

That’s a maxim that seems lost on Trenton’s police director. During an appearance this week before the City Council, Ralph Rivera Jr. was both defiant and defensive about his job performance and the department’s response to a rise in violent crime.

Rivera’s grilling by council members follows an analysis by The Times showing that the number of overall arrests and drug arrests has dropped since he disbanded the tactical anti-crime unit in December. Instead, Rivera has put more officers on patrol.

“Change is slow but, believe me, we’re moving forward,” Rivera told the council members.

Rivera left the meeting before residents had an opportunity to question him – a shame since residents are the ones bearing the brunt of gang violence and other crimes.

While Rivera attributed the stubborn rate of crime in the city, in part, to personnel issues in the understaffed department, Mayor Tony Mack invoked an even more unlikely suspect – Trenton’s law-abiding residents. During his “state of the city address,” he urged them to stop “laying complete responsibility for crime reduction at City Hall’s door.”

Mack also announced a plan for a “clergy citizen’s police academy” where clergy will be trained to help the city combat its ongoing crime problem.

That seems a strange strategy and a dubious response to residents rightly asking what steps city leaders are taking to relieve the constant threat of violence.

It added to the surreal situation of Mack admonishing witnesses to come forward in order to help police resolve open cases. The mayor, of course, has been indicted on corruption charges in a federal case bolstered by witness testimony.

And it was lamentable when Mack advised residents fed up with crime to look into a mirror and ask, “What have I done to be part of the solution?”

That’s a question best posed to the mayor’s own looking glass.

Instead of consulting mirrors, however, Mack and Rivera should hold a town meeting – scheduled in the evening so for the convenience of working residents — to spell out in a coordinated and comprehensive way what they are doing to protect citizens and the city from crime. And they should be prepared to stay until they have answered every question.

“We will not be satisfied until our police department is adequately staffed,” Mack declared this week.

What, then, is being done to accomplish that? Desperate residents want to know.