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Mid Hudson Times, Wednesday, August 24, 2016
City police, attorneys speak out at police-community forum
By SHANTAL RILEY
[email protected]
“Relationships
between
police
departments and communities around
the nation have been strained and recent
events have strained them more.”
The words hovered on a projection
screen at the Newburgh Free Library
Auditorium, which hosted the fifth policecommunity relations forum presented by
the City of Newburgh Police Department
last Thursday.
Transparency is the “key to positive
police and community relations,” city
Police Chief Dan Cameron reading from
the screen. “It’s forums like this that
allow us to show everyone on what we’re
doing on a regular basis,” the police chief
said, and prevent the kind of violence
seen in places like Baltimore and Dallas.
The city has seen its fair share of
violence, Cameron admitted, three weeks
after a man died from gunshot wounds
after walking into St. Luke’s Cornwall
Hospital and five months after another
was shot dead in front of his son on
Benkard Avenue.
With help from federal law
enforcement, city police conducted raids
this summer on the Yellow Tape Money
Gang, said Cameron. They were “major
contributors” to shootings in the city
earlier this year and shootings have
decreased since, he said.
“In 2015, 55 people were shot in the
City of Newburgh,” he said, noting the
city’s population of about 30,000 people.
That year, there were 518 gun-related
call for service and 58 illegal handguns
recovered. “You can’t ignore those
statistics,” he said.
Community-policing initiatives
Community policing was one of his
main goals when becoming acting police
chief last year, Cameron said, and despite
staff cuts, city police have managed
to implement foot patrols and several
community-policing programs. “We
recently logged our 1000th foot patrol,”
Cameron said.
The department’s Youth Police
Initiative, offering week-long programs for
kids and police take part in relationshipbuilding activities, has turned into one of
the most successful YPI programs in the
county. “We have the most YPI graduates
in the nation,” Cameron said.
People attending the forum asked if
the drug market fueled violent crime in
the city. Cameron responded yes.
“A very small percentage of (the
population) is committing a majority
City of Newburgh Police Chief Dan Cameron explains transparency “is key” when it comes to
community policing.
of the violence,” said Cameron. “Of
that small percentage, the majority are
associated with groups.”
The Group Violence Intervention
Program
focuses
on
individuals
associated with groups committing these