News

N-CAP Statement on the Future of Newark’s Civilian Complaint Review Board

August 26, 2020

Comprehensive legislation is needed if the Newark CCRB is to achieve the level of oversight it was created to provide

Last week, the New Jersey Supreme Court issued an opinion that placed strict limits on the powers of Newark’s Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB). In its ruling, the Court identified that current state law prevents the City’s CCRB from using all of the powers delegated by the ordinance that created it in 2015. In order to carry out its mission to the extent originally intended, legislative action is needed.

As designed, the City’s CCRB was a national model for police accountability, enabling community members to provide simultaneous oversight of local law enforcement through independent investigations facilitated by subpoena power. It was a vision of advocates more than 50 years in the making.

N-CAP was represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey and Lawrence Lustberg, director of the John J. Gibbons Fellowship in Public Interest and Constitutional Law at the law firm Gibbons P.C., as it appeared as a friend-of-the-court in the case Fraternal Order of Police, Newark Lodge No. 12 v. the City of Newark to fight for the Newark CCRB as one of the strongest models of oversight nationwide.

Moving forward, N-CAP joins those across New Jersey and the country who are coming together in the name of racial justice and in protest of police brutality. It’s now time for lawmakers to take action, and N-CAP welcomes the opportunity to work together with community partners and lawmakers in crafting legislation that will allow the powers of the Newark CCRB to be fully realized.  

N-CAP steering committee members issued the following statements:

Deborah Smith-Gregory, President, NAACP Newark Branch: “The NAACP Newark Branch stands in solidarity with Mayor Baraka’s continued push for a civilian complaint review board that has subpoena and investigatory powers. There must be a dramatic change to the system if systemic abuse as cited by the Department of Justice is to change.”

Maria Lopez Nuñez, Director of Environmental Justice and Community Development, Ironbound Community Corporation: "The courts sent a message to our communities that despite being the year 2020, we must still fight for basic democratic rights. Police cannot police themselves. Police have failed at this job especially here in Newark. It is time to put power in the hands of our community, we need strong civilian oversight."

Lawrence Hamm, Chairman, People’s Organization for Progress: “Despite the Supreme Court ruling, we will continue to struggle for a police review board with subpoena and investigatory powers, and ultimately, this will be achieved.”

Amol Sinha, Executive Director, ACLU-NJ: “The ACLU-NJ has worked throughout its six decades to fight police misconduct – through litigation, campaigns, and research, all with the goals of countering police abuse and racial profiling, and building police accountability, transparency, and reform. New Jersey stands at a pivotal moment, in which the Supreme Court has provided guideposts to the Legislature that lead toward strong civilian oversight with full investigatory power and the promise for true accountability to communities. We are proud to stand with Mayor Baraka, the people of Newark, and all of those who stand with us in our call for civilian oversight.” 

N-CAP Releases Open Letter in Call to Action

September 26, 2016

N-CAP shares thoughts, frustrations, and hopes for the future following the brutal killings of Black men in September by officers of the law:

In the last few weeks, Tyre King, Terence Crutcher, and Keith Lamont Scott lost their lives within days of each other at the hands of law enforcement in three separate, equally horrifying episodes of violence. Each new death by police extends our communal grief, anger, and trauma.

The details of these events will continue to unfold, and transparency throughout the process is paramount. We remain deeply concerned about the extinguishment of Black life. The overzealous extra-judicial police violence against our communities is fundamentally wrong. This nation throughout its history has persecuted, degraded, and benefited from Black life. The institutionalized racism that still endures denies the humanity of Black lives, through laws, policies, economics, and media representation.

This nation bears strange fruit, indeed. No matter the city—Charlotte, Tulsa, Columbus; East Orange, Irvington, Rutherford—we suffer from a crisis that must end now.

We also learned last week that the Baltimore officers who killed Korryn Gaines and injured her 5-year-old son in July will face no criminal charges. Our current criminal justice system time and again turns a blind eye to the deaths of those it renders most vulnerable and expendable.

Knowing that police who kill will rarely be held accountable, the powder keg of anguish explodes, and some take to the streets to be heard. And as Charlotte residents have channeled their pain and rage into exercising their right to protest, the government has referred to a divisive decades-old playbook: bringing in the National Guard to suppress and contain Americans.

We call on those who witness the unjust actions of our criminal justice system to join us in taking action in our own communities. When we call on society to honor our humanity and dignity, it is a call that must be answered. In our eyes, silence is complicity.

In Newark, we are making progress in transforming our police department, but a tremendous amount of work remains to upend the deeply ingrained violent policing culture that has persisted for generations. Our city is on the leading edge of instituting better policies, including the newly created civilian oversight board, but just signing an ordinance is not enough. Reformation will never take the place of transformation.

No excuses can justify the continued devaluing of life in this country. Enough is enough. Let us freely envision what a truly just criminal justice system and community safety look like. The best remedies to fix an oppressive system may be found outside of it.

Here is our call, and the message is simple: we demand the right to live freely.

Newark and DOJ Sign Consent Decree for Police Department

March 30, 2016

Advocates call for community seat at the table in implementing agreement to reform NJ’s largest municipal police

NEWARK – In a historic development, the U.S. Department of Justice and the City of Newark signed a consent decree that provides an opportunity for unprecedented reform of the Newark Police Department. Newark Communities for Accountable Policing (N-CAP), a Newark-based movement that has demanded changes to the culture and practices of the Newark Police, praised the agreement and called for the community to play a role in holding the department accountable. As part of the consent decree, the Newark Police Department appointed former New Jersey Attorney General Peter Harvey as an independent monitor to oversee reforms.

“As the country reckons with systemic racism and civil rights violations in policing, we as Newarkers hold the power to demonstrate real leadership in combatting violations of civil rights and civil liberties,” said Milly Silva, Executive Vice President of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East. “This monitor is a mechanism through which we can hold the police department fully accountable and begin to establish trust between the community and law enforcement."

The consent decree is the result of a decades-long effort to bring much-needed reform to the state’s largest municipal police force. In the face of community complaints and advocacy, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2014 issued a report documenting substantial unconstitutional conduct among the Newark Police Department. Community leaders formed (N-CAP) to advocate for reforms and demand greater accountability through the creation of a Civilian Complaint Review Board.

“We don’t expect violations of people’s rights to suddenly disappear, but in Newark, we can make progress toward rooting them out,” said Laquan Thomas of the Ironbound Community Corporation. “Too many of us have been stopped hundreds of times too many just for walking around in our neighborhoods as Black men. We hope all of America can look at Newark and in a few years say that this is what real reform looks like.”

Together with Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Vanita Gupta, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, and Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose, U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey Paul Fishman entered into an agreement in federal district court to transform the practices of the Newark Police. These measures will be court-enforced and independently monitored. Some of the remedial measures include:

• New measures and trainings to end unconstitutional and discriminatory stop-and-frisk and arrest practices, excessive use of force, and arrests of Newarkers for exercising First Amendment protected rights
• Community oversight of the NPD, part of which is already set to take place through a city ordinance passed March 16 establishing one of the nation’s strongest police civilian review boards
• A discipline matrix standardizing process and penalties for police misconduct
• Strengthened Internal Affairs procedures
• Enhanced data collection and analysis to ensure fair and just policing practices
• An early warning system to raise red flags of unconstitutional officer behavior and encourage constitutional policing
• Community engagement to strengthen police-community relations

“Newark has the opportunity to show on a national stage what reform of a large urban police department looks like,” said John Smith, a former Newark Police officer, and currently a professor at Essex County College and member of the NAACP New Jersey State Conference. “It’s the job of the Newark community members to make our voices heard, and it’s the job of Newark and DOJ officials to take those voices seriously.”

The U.S. DOJ has also appointed a monitor, former New Jersey Attorney General Peter Harvey, to oversee the implementation of the new practices and policies. N-CAP, which has been actively involved in vetting federal monitor applicants, will ask to meet with Peter Harvey within the first month on the job and will continue to push for meaningful engagement with the Newark community during the monitorship.

“The community has played the biggest role in bringing a monitor to Newark, and the community is the key component to making federal intervention successful,” said Ingrid Hill of the People’s Organization for Progress. “After the monitor has come and gone, the changes the monitor makes will remain with the people of Newark. It’s our job to make sure the changes on the horizon instill within the department a sense of accountability to the people officers are tasked with protecting.”

In July 2014, following advocates’ calls for federal intervention, the Department of Justice released a report finding widespread civil rights and civil liberties violations in Newark policing, including unconstitutional and racially discriminatory stop-and-frisk and arrest practices, excessive use of force, punishment of Newarkers exercising their First Amendment rights, quotas, theft by officers, and a dysfunctional internal affairs structure.

“For 50 years the people of Newark have called for federal oversight of Newark policing, and today’s announcement marks a historic moment in that long struggle to build a fair, just and accountable police force,” said Udi Ofer, ACLU-NJ Executive Director. “But now the hard work begins of transforming a police department that has long engaged in widespread constitutional violations. The consent decree entered into today is a crucial next step toward building a police force that upholds civil rights and is accountable to the people of Newark.”

The signing of the federal consent decree represents an enormous milestone for Newarkers and community members, including the members of N-CAP. The call for a monitor has been a key part of N-CAP’s vision, and N-CAP was instrumental in making the process more transparent. Following N-CAP’s advocacy for transparency, the Department of Justice released a list of applicants for the monitor position to the public. Additionally, the Department of Justice has held several community meetings, including one in Trenton Sept. 30, to discuss civil rights issues in policing.

“This community has worked for decades to hold the Newark Police accountable, and today marks one of the biggest strides forward yet,” said Deborah Smith-Gregory, President of the Newark NAACP. “We thank Mayor Baraka, Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose, and leaders from the U.S. Department of Justice for their commitment to this process and their hard work in making this first crucial step of police oversight happen.”

Newark Communities for Accountable Policing advocated for a strong Civilian Complaint Review Board, which the Newark Municipal Council passed on March 16, building on Newark Mayor Ras Baraka’s 2015 executive order. The review board, together with a monitor, will add much-needed accountability to the Newark Police Department. The nine-member board will have subpoena power, independent investigatory authority, and the ability to audit the department.

“With today’s significant announcement, Newark has an opportunity to serve as a model for law enforcement reform and community-responsive policing throughout New Jersey and the nation. We believe that law enforcement can and must join with the communities they serve to be peacemakers and peacekeepers. Today’s development moves us closer to that reality,” said Ryan P. Haygood, President & CEO, New Jersey Institute for Social Justice.

Newark’s strides toward accountability have been decades in the making, and come amid an ongoing, yet elevated, national conversation about injustices in policing. The abuses of police departments have come to the fore in the past two years, with prominent deaths of people of color, and predominately the deaths of Black men, by police in Ferguson, Mo., Staten Island, N.Y., Baltimore, North Charleston, S.C., and Chicago at the hands of law enforcement officers. These injustices, among others, have propelled the Black Lives Matter movement forward and have increased the demand for public accountability by law enforcement.

“Today, the federal government and the City of Newark firmly demonstrated their recognition of a need for a permanent turn toward policing culture and practices that respect individual rights,” said Jasmine Crenshaw, N-CAP organizer. “The demands for equal rights and justice have often been ignored and suppressed, and the lack of accountability has driven a wedge between communities and police departments. We appreciate the DOJ’s efforts to make this process transparent, and we will stay vigilant to make sure they continue to share information and collaborate with the public throughout this process.”

The Department of Justice under the Obama administration has monitored the police departments of several large cities, with Newark being the latest. Earlier in March, the Department of Justice finalized an agreement with Ferguson, Mo., to overhaul the city’s policing. The Ferguson Police Department came to national attention in August 2014 when police officer Darren Wilson fatally shot unarmed teenager Michael Brown.

Newark Makes History with Council’s Passage of Permanent Police Oversight Board

March 16, 2016

Civil rights, community organizations hail the creation of a strong and permanent vehicle for police accountability, see the beginning of a new day in Newark

NEWARK - Surrounded by community members who took up the mantle of a 50-year fight for civilian-led police accountability, the Newark Municipal Council tonight voted unanimously to establish a permanent civilian complaint review board. Newark’s board is poised to become one of the strongest police oversight boards in the country. Currently, New Jersey has no CCRBs in operation.

“Throughout my decades in Newark, whether as a police officer, an academic or a community activist, I have never seen so much potential for real, lasting reform,” said John Smith, a former Newark police officer, and current professor at Essex County College and member of the NAACP of New Jersey. “And now, that potential is closer than ever to being realized. This oversight board, by permanently putting power into the hands of independent, knowledgeable, concerned community members, could usher along the departmental rebirth residents have sought for more than 50 years.”

The Council voted unanimously to pass a robust ordinance that will empower an 11-member panel to review complaints against the city’s police department. A sizeable majority of the board will be nominated by community-based and civil rights organizations. The new law gives the panel subpoena power, the power to audit police policies and practices, mechanisms to enhance transparency in the police department, and the authority to make sure discipline sticks when officers are found to have engaged in wrongdoing.

“I don’t want my children to have to go through what I did coming up, knowing that if I wanted to visit my friends or family members, there was a good chance I would be stopped by the police for no good reason,” said Laquan Thomas, a community advocate and staff member at the Ironbound Community Corporation. “Now that we’ll have a permanent CCRB in Newark, my children have a better chance of getting an important layer of protection for their rights that I didn’t have. I don’t know when the abuse in our community is going to stop, but I do know that now, with a civilian oversight board passed into law, we’re closer to that point.”

On April 30, 2015, Mayor Ras Baraka issued an executive order to create a civilian complaint review board in Newark. The ordinance passed by the Municipal Council would strengthen and codify the Mayor’s order into permanent law and ensure that the civilian review board outlasts any one mayoral administration. Mayor Baraka and Newark Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose voiced their support for the CCRB ordinance in statements before the Council’s first reading of the legislation on March 2.

“For 50 years the people of Newark have called for the creation of a civilian review board, and today Newark finally responded by creating one of the nation’s strongest police review boards,” said Udi Ofer, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey. “With passage of this law, the people of Newark will now have a powerful, permanent check on police abuses, one that can stand as a national model for strong and independent civilian oversight of police. At a time when communities across the nation struggle with the daily injustices of police misconduct, Newark has taken a historic step to create police accountability.”

As outlined in the ordinance and executive order, the civilian complaint review board will be invested with much-needed independent authority, including the power to:

 

• Investigate complaints of police misconduct. The board will be empowered with subpoena authority to investigate civilian complaints about Newark Police officers’ improper use force; unlawful searches, stops, and arrests; and even discourteous treatment, such as cursing or slurs relating to race, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity, and other protected categories.
• Ensure that disciplinary decisions stick. Only a “clear error” in the board’s investigation will allow the Public Safety Director to reject a finding of fact from the board. The Public Safety Director will then use a pre-negotiated discipline matrix to dole out appropriate punishments.
• Audit the department’s policies and practices, including investigations of patterns that reveal racial disparities in enforcement of laws, or any other issue of public safety or police-community relations.
• Build transparency into the Newark Police Department. The board will be empowered to provide the public with information about complaints it receives, police stops, uses of force, arrests, stop-and-frisk activity, and money paid by the city in settlements or judgments from claims filed against the department. Its meetings would be public.

 

“The regularity by which we bear witness to the tragic deaths of unarmed people of color at the hands of law enforcement reminds the whole country that we have failed to hold police officers accountable when they violate the public trust,” said Milly Silva, Executive Vice President of 1199SEIU Healthcare Workers East. “Newark is poised to lead the nation forward in demonstrating that communities play a critical role in holding police accountable, and that, indeed, Black lives matter.”

The members of the panel will be chosen by a diverse group of stakeholders. As laid out in the ordinance, the city’s inspector general and three designees appointed by Municipal Council members will serve on the board, as well as seven board members nominated by community-based and civil rights organizations, including the ACLU of New Jersey, Ironbound Community Corporation, La Casa de Don Pedro, NAACP New Jersey, Newark Anti-Violence Coalition, People’s Organization for Progress, and a representative from the clergy. Five out of the seven community-based organizations listed in the executive order are steering committee members or endorsing members of N-CAP.

“For decades we have needed a permanent, independent review board that could make discipline stick, and today’s yes vote is the culmination of 50 years of tireless efforts to give that power to the people,” said Larry Hamm, Chairman of the People’s Organization for Progress. “We will work just as tirelessly to ensure that this civilian review board is as strong, independent, and capable of holding police officers to the highest standards of professionalism in practice as it is on paper.”

This vote comes as the city and the United States Department of Justice move closer to the appointment of a federal monitor to implement a pending consent decree to oversee reforms of the Newark Police. A three-year Department of Justice investigation, which followed an ACLU-NJ petition calling for such an investigation, confirmed widespread civil rights and civil liberties abuses by the Newark Police, including unconstitutional and racially discriminatory stop-and-frisk and arrest practices, excessive use of force, punishment of Newarkers exercising their First Amendment rights, theft by officers, and a dysfunctional internal affairs structure. The report, released on July 22, 2014, found that approximately 75 percent of stops in Newark lacked a constitutional basis.

“The Council’s approval of a CCRB will serve as a key part of building trust between the community and law enforcement,” said Deborah Smith-Gregory, President, Newark NAACP. “For any oversight of the police department to be truly effective, it must be permanent and outlast any one mayor or federal monitor. We hope that through civil rights victories like this one, our grandchildren will not have to march the same paths for justice and sing the same songs for their dignity as we have.”

On March 2, before the first reading of the ordinance, N-CAP delivered a letter to members of the Council encouraging support for the CCRB ordinance signed by 26 local, state, and national civil rights and police accountability organizations, including Black Lives Matter NJ, Campaign Zero, La Casa de Don Pedro, the Latino Leadership Alliance of New Jersey, the New Jersey Working Families Alliance, and the Boys and Girls Club of Newark. Additionally, the CCRB has the support of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives.

“Our collective call for the Newark Municipal Council to establish a permanent civilian complaint review board reflects our belief that there has to be a much-needed paradigm shift in order to improve the relationship between police and the communities they serve,” said Ryan Haygood, President and CEO of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice. “That paradigm shift begins now. Law enforcement accountability is an essential aspect of our broader vision of building and empowering healthy urban communities.”

N-CAP, launched in September 2014, comprises steering committee members 1199 SEIU Healthcare Workers East, ACLU-NJ, Garden State Equality, Ironbound Community Corporation, NAACP-New Jersey State Conference, NAACP-New Jersey Newark Chapter, New Jersey Communities United, New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, and the People’s Organization for Progress, as well as organizational members American Friends Service Committee, Newark Anti-Violence Coalition and Newark LGBTQ Community Center.

“No matter what else may happen in the future, with this vote the Newark Municipal Council has ensured that civilian oversight of police has a central, permanent role in our city,” said Jasmine Crenshaw, N-CAP organizer. “Newark cannot afford a CCRB that lacks the power to deliver on its promise of accountability, and this ordinance gives the people of Newark the authority to truly discipline police officers who abuse their position. With the establishment of this CCRB, the days of letting police officers police themselves will start to approach an end.”

Groups Call on Newark Council to Create Permanent Police Oversight

March 02, 2016

Civil rights, community organizations urge council to give Newarkers a permanent vehicle for holding police accountable at historic hearing on civilian review board ordinance

NEWARK – Surrounded by supporters and community members, Newark’s leading advocates for police accountability today called on the Newark Municipal Council to establish a permanent civilian complaint review board (CCRB) to hold Newark police officers accountable for wrongdoing. The council held its first hearing today for an ordinance to create one of the strongest police review boards in the country. A final vote on the ordinance is expected March 16.

“Throughout all my years in Newark, whether as a police officer, an academic or a community activist, I have never seen so much potential for real, lasting reform,” said John Smith, a former Newark police officer, and current professor at Essex County College and member of the NAACP of New Jersey. “This proposal for a CCRB before the council, by permanently putting power into the hands of independent, knowledgeable, concerned community members, could usher along the departmental rebirth residents have sought for more than 50 years.”

On April 30, 2015, Mayor Ras Baraka issued an executive order to create a civilian complaint review board in Newark. Newark communities praised Mayor Baraka’s order, and the ordinance being considered today by the Municipal Council would codify that order into permanent law and ensure that the civilian review board outlasts any one mayoral administration. Mayor Baraka and Newark Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose voiced their support for the CCRB ordinance in statements before the council hearing.

“I don’t want my sons to have to go through what I did coming up, knowing that if I wanted to visit my friends or family members, there was a good chance I would be stopped by the police for no good reason,” said Laquan Thomas, a community advocate and staff member at the Ironbound Community Corporation. “With a permanent CCRB in Newark, my children would get an important layer of protection for their rights that I didn’t have. I don’t know when the abuse in our community is going to stop, but I do know that if the council passes a CCRB, we’ll get a lot closer.”

The review board, as proposed in the bill and laid out in the mayor’s executive order, empowers an 11-member panel, a majority of which will be nominated by community-based and civil rights organizations, to review complaints against the city’s police department, and provides the panel with subpoena power, the power to audit police policies and practices, mechanisms to enhance transparency in the police department, and the authority to make sure discipline sticks when officers are found to have engaged in wrongdoing.

“As communities across the United States struggle with the daily injustices of police misconduct, Newark’s civilian review board can be a national model for creating strong and independent civilian oversight of the police,” said Udi Ofer, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey. “Newark communities have been calling for the creation of a civilian review board since the 1960s. Today’s hearing is an important step in a decades-long struggle for accountability and justice. With the passage of this ordinance, we are that much closer to a permanent check on police abuses.”

As outlined in the ordinance and executive order, the civilian complaint review board will be invested with much-needed authority, including the power to:

• Investigate complaints of police misconduct. The board will be empowered, with subpoena authority, to investigate civilian complaints about NPD officers’ improper use force; unlawful searches, stops, and arrests; and even discourteous treatment, such as cursing or slurs relating to race, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity, and other protected categories.
• Ensure that disciplinary decisions stick. Only a “clear error” in the board’s investigation will allow the Public Safety Director to reject a finding of fact from the board. The Public Safety Director will then use a pre-negotiated discipline matrix to dole out appropriate punishments.
• Audit the department’s policies and practices, including investigations of patterns that reveal racial disparities in enforcement of laws, or any other issue of public safety or police-community relations
• Build transparency into the Newark Police Department. The board will be empowered to provide the public with information about complaints it receives, police stops, uses of force, arrests, stop-and-frisk activity, and money paid by the City in settlements or judgements from claims filed against the department. Its meetings would be public.

“The regularity by which we bear witness to the tragic deaths of unarmed people of color at the hands of law enforcement reminds the whole country that we have failed to hold police officers accountable when they violate the public trust,” said Milly Silva, Executive Vice President of 1199SEIU Healthcare Workers East. “Newark can and must lead the nation forward in demonstrating that communities can play a critical role in holding police accountable, and that, indeed, black lives matter.”

The members of the panel would be chosen by a diverse group of stakeholders. As laid out in the ordinance, the city’s Inspector General and three designees appointed by city council members will serve on the board, as well as seven board members nominated by community-based and civil rights organizations, including the ACLU of New Jersey, Ironbound Community Corporation, NAACP New Jersey, Newark Anti-Violence Coalition, La Casa de Don Pedro, People’s Organization for Progress, and a representative from the clergy. Five out of the seven community-based organizations listed in the executive order are steering committee members or endorsing members of N-CAP.

“We need a permanent, independent review board with the power to make discipline stick,” said Larry Hamm, Chairman of the People’s Organization for Progress. “We will do everything in our power to ensure that this civilian review board is strong, independent, and capable of holding police officers to the highest standards of professionalism.”

The hearing comes as the city and the United States Department of Justice move closer to the appointment of a federal monitor to implement a pending consent decree to oversee reforms of the NPD. A three-year Department of Justice investigation, which followed an ACLU-NJ petition calling for such an investigation, confirmed widespread civil rights and civil liberties abuses by the NPD, including unconstitutional and racially discriminatory stop-and-frisk and arrest practices, excessive use of force, punishment of Newarkers exercising their First Amendment rights, theft by officers, and a dysfunctional internal affairs structure. The report found that approximately 75 percent of stops in Newark lacked a constitutional basis.

“The council’s approval of a CCRB is a key part of building trust between the community and law enforcement,” said Deborah Smith-Gregory, President, Newark NAACP. “We must build effective oversight of the police department that becomes permanent in Newark and will outlast any one Mayor or federal monitor. We push forward so that our grandchildren will not have to march the same paths for justice and sing the same songs for their dignity as we have.”

N-CAP will be educating and mobilizing the public to take action in support of the CCRB leading up to the expected March 16 vote.

“Our collective call today for the Newark Municipal Council to establish a permanent civilian complaint review board reflects our belief that there has to be a much-needed paradigm shift in order to improve the relationship between police and the communities they serve,” said Ryan Haygood, President and CEO of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice. “Law enforcement accountability is an essential aspect of our broader vision of building and empowering healthy urban communities.”

Prior to the hearing, N-CAP delivered a letter (PDF) to members of the Council encouraging support for the CCRB ordinance signed by 27 local, state, and national civil rights and police accountability organizations, including Black Lives Matter NJ, Campaign Zero, La Casa de Don Pedro, the Latino Leadership Alliance of New Jersey, the New Jersey Working Families Alliance, and the Boys and Girls Club of Newark.

“The Newark Municipal Council must act on its duty to ensure that civilian oversight of police has a central, permanent role in our city, and this hearing is an important start,” said Jasmine Crenshaw, N-CAP organizer. “Newark cannot afford a CCRB that lacks the power to deliver on its promise of accountability. The CCRB must be empowered to make sure that officers are disciplined when they abuse Newarkers’ rights. Due to the void of trust in the police, communities need an independent body that is not beholden to the old, failed ways of doing business. With the establishment of this CCRB, the days of letting police officers police themselves will start to approach an end.”

N-CAP, launched in September 2014, comprises steering committee members 1199 SEIU Healthcare Workers East, ACLU-NJ, Garden State Equality, Ironbound Community Corporation, NAACP-New Jersey State Conference, NAACP-New Jersey Newark Chapter, New Jersey Communities United, New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, and the People’s Organization for Progress, as well as organizational members American Friends Service Committee, Newark Anti-Violence Coalition and Newark LGBTQ Community Center.

Related Content

• CCRB Sign-on Letter (PDF)

N-CAP Praises Newark Mayor for Establishing Civilian Review of Police Complaints

April 30, 2015

NEWARK -- Newark Communities for Accountable Policing (N-CAP) praised the Civilian Complaint Review Board established by the executive order of Mayor Ras Baraka today, citing it as one of the most progressive civilian police review boards in the nation and calling it a critical step in creating a transparent and accountable Newark Police Department.

Newark Communities for Accountable Policing Greets Mayor Baraka’s Police Oversight Proposal with Cautious Optimism

January 20, 2015

Newark’s leading advocates for police accountability reacted today with caution to the announcement of a planned executive order from Newark Mayor Ras Baraka to establish a civilian complaint review board (CCRB) to help oversee the Newark Police Department (NPD).

Newark Communities for Accountable Policing Responds to Ferguson Grand Jury Decision

November 24, 2014

Following the decision of a grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri, not to indict police officer Darren Wilson in the death of Michael Brown, Newark Communities for Accountable Policing (N-CAP) issues the following statement:

Today’s announcement reminds all Americans of the troubling reality of the treatment by police of communities of color in the United States. When Black, teen-age males are 21 times more likely to be shot and killed by police than their White peers, we must acknowledge that we face a national policing crisis.

N-CAP Rally at Newark City Hall

November 13, 2014

Concerned residents, activists and others joined Newark Communities for Accountable Policing (N-CAP) at a rally on the steps of City Hall on November 13 and delivered to Mayor Ras Baraka more than 1,300 signatures on a petition to standing with him in support of reform the Newark Police Department.

Newark Advocates Plan Leafleting Blitz to Commemorate National Day to Protest Police Brutality

October 21, 2014

Newark Communities for Accountable Policing (N-CAP), a movement dedicated to reforming the Newark Police Department, will recognize the October 22nd National Day to Protest Police Brutality by taking to the streets of Newark on Wednesday to educate residents about police misconduct here.