EGG HARBOR CITY — Members of the city’s black community who came to a race relations meeting with City Council on Thursday night were surprised to hear that the city has two black police officers.
Both are women, and one is of Egyptian descent, Mayor Lisa Jiampetti said. The other, Marcella Aylwin, attended the meeting and said her father was African-American.
“My father was black, and we spent holidays with our black family here in New Jersey,” Aylwin said.
Even Councilman Clifford Mays, who is African-American, was surprised.
“We don’t have any African-Americans on the police force. Let’s get that straight from jump street,” Mays had said earlier.
After Aylwin shared her story, Mays said, “OK, that’s great. It’s cleared up.”
But others told council they need someone on the job who looks like a member of a minority group, has contacts with the local minority community, and can act as a bridge between the community and police.
“You need someone experientially involved with the community,” said Bishop John Gandy, of Abundant Life Worship Center in Egg Harbor City. “Otherwise, it appears to be like lip service.”
Egg Harbor City’s population of 4,243 people is about 18 percent black and 26 percent Hispanic or Latino, according to the 2010 U.S. Census.
The city has 12 full-time police officers and two Class 2 part-time officers, who work fewer than 30 hours a week and mainly fill in for traffic assistance and foot patrol, police Chief John McColgan said Friday. He said the city may hire a third Class 2 officer soon.
“It’s tough. We’re such a small department, we don’t have somebody who can be a liaison other than me,” McColgan said, adding the department has two fewer full-time officers than last year due to budget constraints.
Also Friday, Gandy said he felt the meeting was a positive development and had allowed community members to voice their concerns to council members and to McColgan.
Many who attended described how they, their children or grandchildren alleged to have been intimidated, harassed and improperly patted down or searched by police while going about normal life.
Gandy said he was happy the mayor promised to continue meetings between minority communities and city officials, and that she agreed the city would do its best to hire qualified African American or Latino police officers in the future.
Gandy said the confusion over what constitutes an African American police officer was eye opening for both whites and blacks.
“The city looked at it in some senses as a technicality, like ‘We meet that standard’ (of having minority officers),” Gandy said. “Our community is talking about having someone familiar with us, who can relate with our community, and ... communicate to the Police Department sensitivities and nuances of the culture.
“The young lady who was there, although she is African American, none of the African Americans knew it. Not even an African American on council knew it. That’s not exactly what we are looking for,” Gandy said.
The meeting was requested by members of Pastors United for Community Service, a coalition of about 16 mostly African American churches in Egg Harbor City and the surrounding area. The group meets monthly to discuss community issues and runs educational and spiritual events, said its president, Bishop Myrtile Mays, of the Holy Trinity Assembly of the Living God Church in Mays Landing.
Pastors United decided it needed to address relations between minority communities and the police after an alleged incident of overuse of force by an Egg Harbor City police officer against an underage African American male.
The boy was left with several missing front teeth, Mays said.
Chief McColgan, who has said he could not release the police report about the incident because it is being handled by the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office, said the officer involved is still on duty.
“The only time an officer is taken off the street is a shooting situation. Then we take direction from county prosecutor,” McColgan said at the meeting.
A spokeswoman for the Prosecutor’s Office said she cannot confirm or deny the existence of an investigation but said that if the office is investigating, the police report would be part of the criminal investigatory records and would not be public record, because such records are exempted from the Open Public Records Act.
Contact Michelle Brunetti Post:
609-272-7219
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