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ATLANTIC CITY - Several residents of the city's Back Maryland section complained at Wednesday's City Council meeting about alleged disrespectful and violent treatment from second-shift police officers - complaints that council members took seriously as they considered whether to install a civilian public safety director.

"You're going to get some answers, I'm not playing," said Council President William Marsh, back from an illness-related absence. "This has to stop."

Councilman Tim Mancuso questioned why so many younger officers are assigned to the 4 p.m.-to-midnight shift, saying more experienced officers might deal more diplomatically with situations on the street.

Police Chief John Mooney did not directly address the complaints when he spoke to the council afterward, though he speculated that they were politically motivated. Mooney did tell the council that being made subordinate to a civilian public safety director would violate the terms of his employment agreement, as well as the recently enacted hiring freeze.

The police chief position will be coming under the supervision of acting Business Administrator Michael Scott, who will try to obtain an internal affairs record of all formal complaints against all officers on the force, Scott said.

Enough members objected to voting on the new measure Wednesday night that it was tabled until the next meeting.

Also Wednesday night, the council failed to schedule a hearing for the possible removal of Housing Authority Chairman Warren Massey. Mancuso, Steven Moore, John Schultz and Marty Small voted in favor, but Marsh, Dennis Mason, George Tibbitt and Bruce Ward voted against.

E-mail Eric Scott Campbell:

ECampbell@pressofac.com

31 comments:

• TheTruthHurts (116) posts 11:19 pm

  Funny how the Issue of how Blacks perceive the Police as racists and are just looking to lock them up because of their skin color because of past transgressions of Law Enforcement gets ignored! Obama puts his foot in his mouth saying the Police acted Stupidly then blames it on the same "Angry Black Victim" mentality! This is a perfect example of how no matter how educated or what position someone may attain you cant take that "Angry Black Victim" mentality out of them! The truth is The Cambridge Police Sergeant did Nothing wrong as far as standard operating procedures go! Gates forgets his key, pushes in the front door to gain access to the dwelling, the Cop is called to the scene because a Neighbor thinks it may be a break in or Burglary, Gates gets all "Angry Black Victim" on Him and gets to wear some new silver bracelets and a ride in a police cruiser, its simple to see how Gates and Obama both ran their mouths off inappropriately and it got them BOTH in hot water!

• blujunk (48) posts 5:00 pm

  Hey ghosdoggshat, whats with all the hate, if you dont live in AC, why are you getting so upset sorry to have hit a nerve. I agree with you as a whole something needs to be done about the section 8, it shouldn't be for life unless your disabled or elderly, those should be the only people taken care of (regardless of race) there should be some kind on time line for section 8, to help the able get back on there feet. If you go around some of these areas there are many young men and women just hanging in the court yards or the porches, they need to be looking for work to better there families and themselves. Either way the hiring of Public Safety Director will do nothing but tie the hands of the upper management and less will get done.

• hadenough (136) posts 12:56 pm

  Lets see...Rene will make his police review board with Steve Young, and all of the good Rev. Al Sharpton's bobbleheads...Maybe the good rev. will even through in his 2 cents every now and then...The back Maryland residents don't have a problem with calling the police when the thugs, (competition) are at their door because the law only applies to others and not them...ACPD should just stay out of the area, find reasons not to answer any calls there and send in the verminators to clean up the mess afterwards...God help ACPD.....

• Ghosdogg (253) posts 12:31 pm

  Hey Zfromtheoc!...I am well aware of the percentages and numbers...With "all due respect" I think "portions" of your comments were pointless and appropriate as addressed to the residents of Back-Maryland...I am also a law abiding, tax paying, home-owning adult, who embraces my responsibilities.... That you would imply that "any" responsibly person residing in or outside of Back-Maryland is "proud" of that community as it is today is yet again inappropriate and/or racist. I don't perceive you as a racist. We can agree to disagree and move on.

• blujunk (48) posts 11:28 am

  Hey ghosdogg, How come its just the Back Maryland area that are complaining. You dont hear any complaining from the Venice Park Section or Lagoon, West Side Lower Chelsea or Chelsea Heights (Buzby Village), why is that. Why are you so up in arms about what people post or where they might be from, you should be upset with crime, shooting and killings of your neighbors. You should be upset that a society thinks its ok to steal from one another, or the recent headline where a 16 year old boy stabbed someone over a bike. But not you, it comes down to a matter of pride, talking about your area, so coming on here and calling people names is the way to go. Its a shame what your world is coming to.

• executioner1 (307) posts 10:51 am

  You mean there is an actual police presence in A.C.. You wouldn't know it with all of the crime.Bar anyone who commits a crime from any public assistance and maybe then the neighborhood would clean out its crime problem. If the police break the law fire them.There are a lot of good people living in back Maryland don't discriminate against them because of the actions of a few.The good and great citizens of A.C. are being dragged down by the few scum rise up and run them out of town.

• zfromtheoc (5) posts 10:49 am

  ghosdog- of course there are more white people on welfare, there are more whites in the population. What are the percentage of whites on welfare compared to minorities? By no means am I saying all the residents of back maryland are trouble, all I'm asking is how many of their grandparents would be proud of them. MLK would be fine with me, I am a law abiding, tax paying, homeowning grown up. I take care of my responsibilities and work full time. If you are that proud of back maryland then you have much bigger issues than anything I can fix.

• Ghosdogg (253) posts 1:59 am

  By the way junkfood(oops I mean blujunk)wander your little mind over to statistics on the number of White section 8 dwellers(ten fold that of blacks and costing the tax payers ten fold more)and checkout da nice rides. When will you and other like thinkers(sometime identified as imbeciles) start taking responsibility for not knowing what you're taking about?

• Ghosdogg (253) posts 1:41 am

  Hey Blufunk(sorry I meant Blujunk)...And "you" would really know what's going on in the Back Maryland community??? Please, you and like minded thinkers give me a break. LOL

• Ghosdogg (253) posts 12:24 am

  Hey Zfromtheoc!!...Since you and other "imbeciles" like you generalize that all residents of Back Maryland are the same in all aspects of culture and life, allow me to ask the question of you from your finite perspective. What would Martin Luther King Jr. think of you and all white Americans that generalize and categorize all Black Americans or all residents of Back-Maryland the same in all aspects? When are you people going to stop your imbecilic racist generalizations? ...Duh!!!

• blujunk (48) posts 12:14 am

  I wonder how many of the residents of the Back Maryland Section area that are complaining are living off of section 8 or wellfare. How come there is not an outrage of the drug and violence in the area where a 16 year old boy committed murder over a bike. Please give me a break, when will people start taking responsibility for there actions. But on the postive side since they dont have to worry about living expensives they do have some nice rides.

• Ghosdogg (253) posts 11:56 pm

  Hey Zfromtheoc!!...Since you and other "imbeciles" like you generalize that all residents of Back Maryland are the same in all aspects of culture and life, allow me to ask the question of you from your finite perspective. What would Martin Luther King Jr. think of you and all white Americans that generalize and categorize that all Black Americans and/or just all the residents of Back-Maryland are the same in all aspects? When are you people going to stop your imbecilic racist generalizations? ...Duh!!!

• todfiat (0) posts 6:12 pm

  A Mind Is A Terrible Thing to Waste. (just look at Michael Jackson.)

• zfromtheoc (5) posts 5:42 pm

  lisalisa, my question is this- when you look around at the residents of back maryland, how many of them would Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. be proud of? How many would he think were worth the tribulations he went through? When are people going to stop blaming everyone else for their own miseries?

• JohnSA (31) posts 5:35 pm

  Along with the police, the other victims of all of this are the decent people who, with virtually no choice, live in the neighborhood. They have to put-up with the crime and violence and apathetic neighbors. I'm sure that they are glad to see a cop now and then, even if their neighbors aren't. People in good areas don't put-up with riff-raff. They keep an eye on things and do things to keep their neighborhood safe, clean and pleasant. They don't mind seeing the police patrol the area and certainly don't mind calling them when they see something suspicious. The residents of the Back Maryland section need to take the initiative in securing their neighborhood, ridding it of crime and making it safe for all residents. They need to establish a good rapport with the police and let them do their job. Criminals aren't nice and shouldn't be treated nicely by the police. Until then, I wouldn't blame the cops for not caring what goes on there and letting the residents fend for themselves.

• CindyA (4) posts 4:22 pm

  Police are just people, there are good ones and bad ones. I have total respect and admiration for the good ones, however, I have had my own bad experience with some bad ones. I'm a law abiding citizen too. The problem is that the bad ones are seemingly allowed to treat people poorly, be dishonest and break the law themselves, and get away with it. This has caused the general lack of trust and respect for many police officers. For instance the ones who drive around (or let their girlfriends) in a car with a big badge on the dash, a beaming trophy to say...."Hey, I can break the law...nany nany boo boo." Maybe they should have "secret shoppers" so to speak like they do at other places of employment to bust the bad cops and get rid of them. A serious problem in AC is that true criminals and bad people are also being allowed to behave out of ordinary, disorderly and vulgar in public - if they are black. Law enforcement is afraid to get the race card slapped on them, so they turn a cheek most times to behavior that would ordinarily land someone in jail. What to do? Who knows. Don't walk the streets of AC alone at night though....eeeekkk!

• Ghosdogg (253) posts 4:00 pm

  Characteristics of Housing Assistance Recipients Public housing: Vouchers, Private, subsidized Total units under lease March 2007 Percent by income relative to area median Mean income ($) 12,715 12,411 11,056 Percent by race and ethnicity Public housing, White, non-Hispanic: Vouchers 29%, Private 36%, subsidized 50%....Black: non-Hispanic Vouchers 34%, Private 43%, sudsidized 32%....Another sobering study that you can trust...LOL!!!

• Bobstake (246) posts 1:05 pm

  AC is going down the " I wear black on my sleeve" racist rant. Soon it may be too late to have rational debate. I believe Marsh shows he wants to please the back Maryland mob. He and Langford want a BLACK PSD to do their bidding instead of an independent professional WHITE Police Chief.That is why they encourage police bashing. Maybe,only black officers should patrol this area. Would that make all the punks & criminals behave themselves?

• B4real (371) posts 12:57 pm

  Here's a sobering study on Back Maryland. Statistics tell it all. http://www.frbsf.org/cpreport/docs/atlantic_city_nj.pdf Back Maryland, with a predominately African-American population, is characterized by a number of HUD-subsidized privately owned housing projects. In 2000, the area contained 7,771 residents, 19 percent of Atlantic City’s population. Eighty-four percent of occupied housing units in the study area were renteroccupied, compared with 71 percent for the city as a whole. About 63.4 percent of all occupied units in the area were in public housing projects or in HUD-subsidized privately owned housing. Socioeconomic data on the study area’s residents for 2000 show that unemployment levels were higher than in the city as a whole, particularly for males (male and female rates were 25.3 percent and 12.8 percent respectively). About 45 percent of family households were headed by females with one or more children under 18, compared to about 26 percent for Atlantic City as a whole. About 44 percent of residents over age 25 lacked a high school diploma, and only 7 percent of this group had completed college. Students proficient in reading: 30.4%. Proficient in math: 50%. At least 1 in 10 males has HIV. Top three highest HIV rates in the state.

• TheTruthHurts (116) posts 12:26 pm

  People don't worry, these young officers will develop into the same apathetic group of cops that retired a couple years ago after they realize all their good work means nothing to their superiors who only care about getting their next promotion! The young cops are impressionable and are only following the lead of the veterans, basically its Monkey See Monkey Do! Its all part of wanting to be accepted by their peers! They truly believe their making a difference! after a few departmental beat downs they'll adjust their attitude and program!

• BernieSchwartz (645) posts 10:52 am

  New York City was a war zone back in the early nineties, AC is fast becoming a war zone that will spread to the "nice" parts of the City. New York cracked down on crime AC must do the same. Soon enough there will be no nice parts of AC, has anyone walked down Pacific Ave. lately? It's scary even in the daylight. Back Maryland section is to far gone to save.

• lisalisa (13) posts 10:51 am

  This has been going on for years...The ACPD harass the residents and have been doing this for a very long time. The resident are actually scared of the police. Its sad when they are suppose to be professionals who are to protect us and they act with ignorance and they treat us with no dignity. Something has to change. I've even seen white officers tell black officers to "back off" when they are using excessive force against someone. It's just really sad...Why is it that they only put white officers in black neighborhoods? you don't see black officers patrolling duck town? I can't understand how they just pull cars over, search them, stop residents, search them. I saw them going through the pockets of a 10 year old boy who was going to the store for his mother. The residents are scared and something needs to change. I hope they hire a public safety director because the police need to be disciplined for overuse of force.

• weisenthal (293) posts 9:49 am

  This is the second stage of the Langford gang dismantling the police department, giving rise, again to wild west crime reemerging in Atlantic City. He figures his "constituents" don't like police interference with their various crimes and rackets and will vote for him more reliably. "He stopped the oppression of the cracker POlice from messing with our game." Think the city's in trouble? Remember the shootings of the 2002-2006 period? In the undertaking business? Better stock up. Also, exboxman bites it, on a regular basis.

• ItWasntMe (42) posts 9:17 am

  I know this..number 1. Put camaras up. The residents of that area will not want them there and they will come down. Those camaras will also record the crime in those areas. Residents only want us to see what they want us to see.2. I defy anyone, black, white, yellow, red any race. Go to the back Maryland section. Dress nice, drive a decent car. Park somewhere and get out and take a walk....say around 10 or 11 pm. Walk around the peaceful neighborhood for 1 hour. See how YOU feel while walking around. Will you become a victim ? Will your car still be in one piece ? Will you make it back to your car ? or will everything be fine ? Oh..and do it alone...not with a group. Just you. I would bet not too many will take that challenge. Why ? Because the area is dangerous. Period. Can anyone dispute that fact ? Maybe the police should just stay out of the area for say 1 week and see what happens. I know what will happen...do you ?

• just4u (25) posts 9:08 am

  I truly agree with lots of these comments. These residents should complain about the crime-ridden neighborhood and the wanna-be thugs instead of the police. They need to learn that to earn respect, you have to give it. It's a shame that 95% of these residents don't even know what that is.

• spiritual (6) posts 8:56 am

  Just like the Press, all along the Press have been running articles about Massey and protraying him as if he has done something wrong. The Press was giving full articles on hearing situations. Now that Council has put a stop to it, the Press isn't writing about that. What about the audit that was given out at council indicating how Dennis Ricci and staff did not know what they were doing? When is someone finally going to stand up and tell the truth that Dennis Ricci screwed up, Pam and Jelani don't know what they are doing. Massey used to be their friends, but has soon as he spoke up and told the truth, he became their enemy. That Marceeda Gooding and Steve Young ought to be a ashame of themselves. They will fall one day becuase you can't keep going around hurting people. Steve Moore should be recalled, he doesn't use his own voice and he surely does not speak for Residents of Stanley Holmes. It makes you wonder, why did he ever run for council? The Press should be investigating Dennis Ricci, oops, I forgot he is white they will never do that.

• kin2love (118) posts 8:41 am

  As hurtful as it is for me to do this, I must agree with Chumley & Co. We have gotten waaaaay out of hand. There is no longer any excuse to act and conduct ourselves this way. It's embarassing because my parents grew up in AC. I was born and raised in VA Ave courts until my parents did what they had to and moved on up. Both of them have great jobs, are still married, and own a $350,000 home in EHT. God willing, I will continue to follow in their footsteps. This is not just a Back Maryland thing...it's a nation-wide epidemic. I'm tired of the video ho persona that has been stamped on Black woman (something we have done to ourselves). Everybody can't be a rapper or a thug (don't you even WANT to know what a 401K is???). We need to wake up and get it together. I'm not saying that we have to assimilate and mold our culture to what the USA considers to be the majority (they have PLENTY of their own issues to deal with as well). But standards need to be set and maintained for our people. Standards that reflect good education, respect for life, the proper rearing of our children, and aspirations to achieve above and beyond.

• SouthJerseyGirl (67) posts 8:38 am

  Why are the younger officers assigned to that area during that shift? Seniority. No officer in his or her right mind would willingly request duty in Back Maryland when crime is at its highest, so the newer cops get put there. It's a violent, crime-ridden neighborhood. If the residents don't like the disrespectful, violent treatment they receive from the police, perhaps they should stop BEING disrepectful and violent. Either that, or how about the police just refuse to patrol that area entirely? How would the residents like that? And of course Speedy Marsh wants it to stop - he's part of the problem. This is what you get when you elect criminals to public office - they do anything they can, legal or not, to cater to the criminal element in AC. Take all authority away from the police, like they're trying to do, and the entire city will be run by thugs, gangs and criminals. Have fun with that.

• Chumley (165) posts 7:47 am

  Agreed! Respect is a two way street. Is it "Culture" that the folks of back Maryland just have NO respect for the PoPo? Face it...they have no respect for their own race. They've been killing each other back there for how long? How can anyone expect respect from the very people that have no respect for anything.

• njdlmkr (428) posts 6:40 am

  The issue of "disrespect" is a simple one: You get what you give. If you show respect to the police they will show respect back.

• Blueeyes (20) posts 6:09 am

  Why don't these people that are going to look into these complaints go sit in their car for a night and see what goes on. What do they have to start putting surveillance cameras around to protect the police. Like everyone that lives in the Back Maryland section are all upstanding citizens and their kids are so well behaved. I would hate to be an officer called to go there. The adults in this area should not be teaching their kids to hate the police but raise them not to be animals, but then again they are acting as these kids do as well. But the first minute they need the police and feel that the response is not to their liking they want to scream police brutality. Where are the ones that live in this area not sticking up for the challenges these police have when called to this area. The police risk being shot at or accused of being rough, but you have a teen who steals a bike and is a punk scumbag mouthing off and he is arrested and now will scream police brutality. Why don't some of these people that see the crime going on and the issues come forward and say they want to clean it up.

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