Monmouth County certainly isn’t Ferguson, Missouri, but the NAACP members believe dialogue needs to continue to improve the relationship of police and racially diverse communities in Red Bank and surrounding towns and that discussion will be held March 14.
As local branch presidents of the National Organization for the Advancement of Colored People weighed in on the U.S. Department of Justice’s probe into civil rights violations by Ferguson police, they noted they have planned a forum that will have chiefs of police of at least four area communities and community representatives address police relations and to discuss guidelines for the police’s use of force.
In Red Bank the NAACP has a particularly good relationship with police and elected officials, offering opportunities to meet with organization representatives and the public, stressed Rev. Henry Davis, who heads up the Red Bank branch of the civil rights organization.
But, as in any community there is frustration and at times anger, especially on the part of young men of color, the Reve. Randy McNeill, senior pastor of Mount Zion House of Prayer in Red Bank noted.
The answer is, McNeill believed, “Education, education, education.”
And part of that education has to be in learning how to deal with authority, “and getting to know each other,” he said. “We have to put our guards down and getting to know each other, one-on-one.”
Lorenzo Dangler, president of the Long Branch NAACP, said, “We want to know what is the memo you’re sending down to your officers, your rank and file?” in regards to the use of force, especially deadly force. Dangler said he hoped to broach that topic with the heads of the police departments in two weeks’ time.
A forum will be held at Long Branch High School, 404 Indiana Avenue, starting at 11 a.m. Police Chiefs from Long Branch, Asbury Park, Red Bank and Tinton Falls are scheduled to participate as well as Dangler and NAACP colleagues and others. The discussion will be videotaped with DVDs available to the municipalities to broadcast over public access TV, Dangler said.
Wednesday morning Dangler and Rev. Davis, who head up the Red Bank branch along with McNeill, offered their responses to the announced U.S. Department of Justice’s scalding report on Ferguson.
The report, while clearing Officer Darren Wilson of any civil rights violations in the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, found the almost exclusively white Ferguson Police Department created “toxic environment” in dealing with the largely African-American community, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said on Wednesday.
The report disclosed that police disproportionately targeted black community members for crimes and infractions as well as discovering officers’ emails that used racist language and shared racist jokes.
“Wow,” Dangler said when he found out the contents of the report. “I’m saying wow but I’m not surprised.”
Given that the federal investigation came about only after Brown’s death, “It’s so sad that something like this had to happen before any action takes place,” offered Davis.
“It is damning. You can see why there is such an anger that the people of Ferguson have when you are under that type of attitude,” McNeill observed.
“It could happen anywhere, anytime,” Dangler feared, which is why he hopes such discussions will help clear the air to prevent the likes of what happen in Ferguson, or in Staten Island, New York, last summer with the death of another unarmed black man, from occurring on the streets of Monmouth County.
– By John Burton
John Burton can be reached at jburton@tworivertimes.com or at 732-219-5788
