OUT OF
TOWN COPS
HUFFINGTON
12.09.12
“WE’VE BEEN ENCOURAGING OFFICERS TO MOVE
OVER, GET READY FOR THE NEW PARADIGM.”
agely assaulted his 12-year-old
sister. Uniformed police apprehended the killer after an intensive manhunt.
Several current Camden officers
spoke about their situation with
HuffPost on condition of anonymity due to fears of retaliation by
their superiors. They describe
a department crumbling from
within, whose demoralized officers
feel abandoned by the city they
pledged to protect.
Bitterness runs deep over what
they feel is a long-running campaign by city and county officials to
paint Camden’s cops as ineffective,
unreliable and over-compensated.
“Camden is not a joke. Some
parts of this place are a war
zone,” says one officer. “My friend
opened up a freezer and saw a
kid’s head looking back at him.
He’s got to live with that the rest
of his life.”
“We risk our lives every day.
And this is what you get in return,” he says. “See you later and
don’t let the door hit you on the
way out.”
Another veteran officer warns
that replacing seasoned Camden
cops with large numbers of inexperienced, lower-paid recruits —
as the metro plan envisions — is
a recipe for disaster. He scoffs at
a recent comment by Capelli, the
Board of Freeholders director, announcing that the new agency had
received more than 1,000 applications, including some from states
as distant as Alabama.
“They’re going to be thrown to
the wolves,” he says. “If some outsider from Alabama comes in and
shoots a kid, it’s a potential for
some civil unrest.”
In August, county leaders announced that Camden police Chief
Scott Thomson would lead the
metro agency once the existing
force was disbanded. For months,
Thomson has spoken out in favor
of the new agency — while leveling
harsh criticism at members of his
current force, saying it is plagued
by absenteeism.
Many within the department
see his role in pushing the plan as