OUT OF
TOWN COPS
“We’ve been encouraging officers to move over, get ready for
the new paradigm,” Camden Mayor Dana Redd tells HuffPost. “This
is the way we’re going.”
‘THE NUMBERS
DON’T ADD UP’
Even as city and county leaders
call the metro agency a done deal,
it faces a growing outcry from
critics who assail it as a harsh experiment in public sector unionbusting and say it’s being forced
on New Jersey’s most economically vulnerable population by state
power brokers with little interest
in Camden’s well-being.
They say the plan was crafted in
secrecy and that basic information
about the current police department’s finances, and budgeting for
the new agency, have never been
provided to the public.
Other critics focus on the county’s plan to replace seasoned officers with new recruits, with some
community activists warning that
an influx of young officers from
outside the city could spark unrest
on the streets.
The perception that older cops
are being discarded as a cost-saving maneuver has also deeply em-
HUFFINGTON
12.09.12
bittered many in the department’s
ranks, officers say.
“I might not have a job in a couple of months, after risking my life
for years,” says one veteran cop,
who spoke on condition of anonymity because he fears retaliation by his superiors.
Brian Coleman, the only Camden
councilman to oppose the metro
plan, says he has tried to get a full
accounting of the police department’s current spending from city
“WOULD YOU BUY A CAR
SIGHT UNSEEN? THIS DEAL
IS NOT BEING CONDUCTED
OUT IN THE OPEN.”
hall, but he’s had no success. The
finances of the new police agency
have never been provided to the
public or discussed in detail by the
city council, Coleman says.
“I’ve asked for an explanation
and requested documents, but
they haven’t turned them over,”
he says. “The numbers don’t add
up. That’s why they don’t release
them.” Brendan O’Flaherty, a Columbia University economics professor who specializes in urban
finance, reviewed the one-page