What were your impressions of the police tactics while watching the Policing the Police movie about the Newark Police Department. Did you think the police had reasonable suspicion?
As you view the video, take notes and answers to these questions.
What were your impressions of the police tactics while watching the Policing the Police movie about the Newark Police Department. Did you think the police had reasonable suspicion?
Article IV of the Bill of Rights. What rights are guaranteed?
• What happened in Newark, New Jersey, in 1967? Do you know anyone who lived in Newark during that time? What were there impressions?
What language do the newscasters and the narrator use to describe the events?
• After the Rodney King incident in Los Angeles, what new powers were
given to the U.S. Department of Justice concerning local police departments?
• What charges were made against the Newark Police Department?
What did the DOJ discover in its investigation? What improvements were being
considered?
https://moodle.essex.edu/mod/url/view.php?id=2462017
CORRESPONDENT
Jelani Cobb
PRODUCED BY
Anya Bourg
James Jacoby
WRITTEN BY
James Jacoby & Jelani Cobb
DIRECTED BY
James Jacoby
JELANI COBB, Correspondent: [voice-over] In Newark, New Jersey, every city council hearing starts with Whitney Houston’s version of the national anthem. She’s a hometown hero.
CLERK: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Newark Municipal Council’s public meeting.
JELANI COBB: But tonight is not just an ordinary meeting. People have packed City Hall to speak up about the need for more police accountability. It’s a conversation happening in cities all across the country.
1st NEWARK RESIDENT: Hello. My name is Laquan Thomas. I done been robbed by the cops, I done been assaulted by the cops. Like, that’s crazy! Like, you all are supposed to be serving and protecting the community, but they serve and disrespect the community.
2nd NEWARK RESIDENT: I’ve been a victim of them more than once. I’ve been the victim of retaliation after reporting police abuses.
3rd NEWARK RESIDENT: I don’t know a day that I walked outside and did not see police treat people injustice. Are the criminals being dealt with? Maybe, but the ones doing the 9-to-5, paying their taxes—why are we subject to the same punishment as the rest of them?
JELANI COBB: I’ve been going to meetings like this for years, writing about race and policing for The New Yorker magazine.
[CNN interview] There seems to have been, you know, really entrenched distrust for the police before.
[voice-over] I was in Ferguson, Missouri, after a white policeman killed Michael Brown, a young black man. After the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, I took this cell phone video of cops trying to put down the protests.
I cover these stories because I see the tension between African-Americans and the police as a gauge of race relations in this country. And it’s led me to wonder, What would it take for policing to ever be different?
In the summer of 2014, I started looking at Newark, one of the more recent cities to be accused of abusive and discriminatory policing.
PAUL FISHMAN, U.S. Attorney, New Jersey: Three years ago, we announced that we were launching an investigation into whether the Newark Police Department had engaged in a pattern or practice of unconstitutional policing.
JELANI COBB: The Justice Department found rampant misconduct.
JOYCELYN SAMUELS, United States Asst. Attorney General: –that the Newark Police Department has engaged in a pattern or practice of unconstitutional stops, searches and arrests on the city of Newark’s black residents.
JELANI COBB: The DoJ demanded reform, but I wanted to know how reform could happen in Newark, a poor city where last year, there were more than 300 shootings and 105 murders—
NEWSCASTER: –twice the number of carjackings—
JELANI COBB: –a rate nine times higher than New York City’s. Gangs and drugs drive the violence—
NEWSCASTER: Three teens were shot—
JELANI COBB: –and the department is underfunded, overstretched and under fire for the way they do things.
NEWSCASTER: Details this morning on a double shooting in New Jersey, a woman killed and a man wounded.
JELANI COBB: At the street level, the effort to halt the bloodshed falls on the Newark PD’s gang unit. After writing about the police for years from the outside, I wanted to see things from the perspective of the cops themselves. It took months before they agreed to give us access.
Sgt. JOE CONZENTINO: [at roll call] We had a gun robbery at 12:30 hours. 49 Fairview Avenue—
JELANI COBB: Sergeant Joe Conzentino is in charge.
Sgt. JOE CONZENTINO: The victim, Mr. Stokes, previously classified G-Shine, or a gang member. We don’t know if this ties into the active dispute. Reach out to our informants in the area, see if there’s a tie-in to this. Fairview Homes, we will ride by and monitor that location during our tour of duty.
JELANI COBB: Like the rest of the police department, the gang unit is predominately black and Latino, and so are most of the victims and perpetrators.
RADIO: Let us know when you’re ready.
Ofc. KENNETH GAULETTE: We’re good.
Ofc. CARLOS ALVARADO: All right, son.
JELANI COBB: On one night, I rode with Ricardo Reillo, a former truck driver, and Wilberto Ruiz, an Air Force vet. Both are from Newark. The officers say they’re out here hunting for guns, drugs and intelligence about gang rivalries.
OFFICER: You guys don’t know anything about the shootings going on down here?
MAN: I know nothing.
JELANI COBB: As we roll up on one of the worst streets in Newark, a guy starts running.
OFFICER: We got to go! We got to go!
WOMAN: Those are my kids!
JELANI COBB: It’s just the start of a busy night—
OFFICER: Bunch of heroin, bricks, bunch of marijuana—
JELANI COBB: –one of many we spent with the unit.
OFFICER: See your hands. See your hands.
WOMAN: She lives here. They are my visitors.
OFFICER: [frisking man] Got something in your pants, man?
YOUNG MAN: No, sir.