More Cops, New Cars: Newark's Crime-Fighting Plan for 2014

City and county law-enforcement officials Tuesday announced plans to reduce crime in Newark that included hiring additional police officers, adding new vehicles and coordinating with neighboring communities to nab criminals from outside the city. 

“This pandemic of violence has to be addressed with new strategies,” said Newark Municipal Council President Mildred Crump during the city hall press conference.

Among those measures is the hiring of 100 new police officers, said Police Director Samuel DeMaio, although that increase in manpower will be partly offset by several retirements expected as officers in 2014 reach the 25-year service mark. DeMaio also added, however, that those eligible to retire may not all opt to do so this year.

DeMaio also said that a redeployment of manpower that has been underway for several months will be completed this year, resulting in more Newark police on the streets. Civilians will take over desk jobs including in the dispatch center and in finance now filled by sworn officers.

The department has also purchased 26 new SUVs, six new motorcycles and 10 Ford Taurus unmarked cars to augment the NPD’s aging vehicle fleet, DeMaio also said. Several of the vehicles were on display in front of city hall.

City police officials also said they would be working more closely with their counterparts in Irvington, East Orange and other nearby cities in order to catch criminals coming into Newark or Newarkers leaving the city and committing offenses elsewhere.

During the press conference, officials acknowledged the surge in homicides in 2013 -- at 111, the highest total in 23 years -- but also highlighted some of law enforcement’s successes in battling other crimes, including violent ones.

Non-fatal shooting incidents dropped by 34 versus 2012, to 243, while 53 fewer people were actually injured in 2013, when 298 people were shot. And while carjackings increased, the number of car thefts overall also dropped, by 543 in 2013. There was also a decline in aggravated assaults.

Various law enforcement agencies also managed to get hundreds of guns off the streets in 2013: Newark police seized 786 weapons, the Essex County Sheriff’s Office recovered about 200 more, and investigators with the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office were responsible for another 100, said Sheriff Armando Fontoura.

Still, Fontoura admitted, getting firearms out of the hands of criminals appears to be like trying to hold back the tide. When he was an NPD rookie in the 1960s, Fontoura said, seizing an illegal weapon was so rare that doing so could earn a cop a commendation.