City Council Discusses Police Residency Requirements

The City Council will discuss tonight whether to impose residency requirements on police officers. The meeting starts at 6:30 p.m.

Police-community relations have been tense since the Sept. 22 shooting death of city resident Barry Deloatch and there have been calls, most recently by city resident Charlie Kratovil, to require new officers to live in New Brunswick.

City officials say there is no legal mechanism to require officers to remain in New Brunswick once hired, even though the city gives hiring preference to city residents and requires that applicants for the department be residents of the city at the time they register to take the police civil service exam and throughout the first year of training and probationary time on the job.

New Brunswick Patch coverage will go live at 5 p.m. and continue throughout the meeting.

Residents or others who plan to tweet during the meeting should email their Twitter handle to Regional Editor Hank Kalet (hank.kalet@patch.com) so that it can be added to our collection of feeds and included in our coverage this evening. Readers can use the moderated comment function on our site beginning at 5 p.m.