Huffington Magazine Issue 8 | Page 59

NEWARK BLUES HUFFINGTON 08.05.12 BUDGET CUTS. FEWER COPS. AUSTERITY HITS THE MEAN STREETS. B Y JOHN RUDOLF I L L U S T R A T I O N B Y PJ LOUGHRAN IT’S COMING UP on midnight on a sweltering July night in Newark when the call goes out from dispatch: shots fired in Vailsburg, a gritty residential neighborhood in the West Ward. The officers joking outside the 4th precinct station house scatter, scramble into squad cars and race down the darkened streets. They find the victim, a man in his 30s, sprawled on the pavement under a crooked elm tree, a red patch spreading across the shoulder of his white T-shirt. He stares up at a starless sky as paramedics arrive and take him off on a stretcher. He’ll live, an officer observes. Shirtless boys gape in front yards and old women lean out of windows. The shooter escaped on foot. Another call crackles on the radio: more gunfire in Vailsburg. Again the squad cars race. The scene is chaotic, with dozens of agitated young people swarming outside a dilapidated single-family home. At the curb sits a