'THE CHILDREN WERE NOT PROTECTED AND I DID NOT GET SERVED!' ANGRY PARENTS QUESTION POLICE ROLE IN HOMECOMING DANCE MELEE

We deal with issues involving police reportedly getting out of hand all the time. We deal with how conservatives like to use such incidents to advance their “hate whatever it is the black guy did” agenda they have had going since God knows when. So when police mix it up with students and their parents at a Homecoming Dance held at their high school that results in dozens injured and cops from five jurisdictions coming out as backup, you can pretty much expect we are going to say something when that high school is Franklin High School in Somerset, NJ – DLJ’s alma mater! Now this doesn’t mean anything is going to go any differently than any other incident that has been dealt with. In fact, the situation is unfolding pretty much the same way it does in your more high profile incidents: community is angry about some incident where they say the police were out of control, the police and/or municipality puts out a statement, which is basically their side of the story, and the more conservative among us take that statement and that statement alone, disregard all the other statements, and use that to demonize those that have issue with the police. That last bit in particular is what is especially riling up the residents here because a bunch of clowns, many of whom have no connection to the Township, are posting hatemongering garbage on local discussion boards, and it came up at the town council meeting – repeatedly. In fact a lot of things did, and we pretty much agree that there is a slanted approach to how certain media outlets have reported FHS. To that end, we made sure that the statements of a number of witnesses, residents and students that were a part of the melee are included in this article – and it is pretty unfortunate that we are probably one of the few, if only, outlets to date that has even done that. Honestly, the real problem is unless there is some serious deviation from how this matter is being approached, we are sure the police are going to be “cleared of any wrongdoing” whether they are guilty of it or not, just like anywhere else. That being said, the town council and the mayor might be in trouble because people here put too much of their time in for them not to be respected for it. If they feel like their local government is not serving them, they will change it. A few years ago, Franklin Township (Somerset is a section of Franklin) changed it’s government structure so that instead of the Mayor being appointed by the council, he or she gets elected. That first elected Mayor, Brian Levine, now has this little potential powderkeg on his hands. If he and the rest of the council – one of the members a former Mayor herself – don’t handle this right, someone else will be sitting in their seats pretty soon. We urge them to ignore the online posts from those who can talk a lot of trash on a website forum, but did not have the balls to come to a town council meeting and talk the same trash – which by the way was all of them. If they need a barometer to weigh how the public feels about what happened, they had better remember the 300+ people who came to chat with them on Tuesday. That’s all the barometer they need!

One People’s Project

FRANKLIN TWP (SOMERSET), NJ-Those who have moved to this town in Central Jersey do so to get away from the harsh, sometimes hostile climate of larger cities like Newark and New York City. Many of them are professional people who come here to raise families, and over the past forty years those have been predominately Black and Hispanic. Last year, Money Magazine rated this town of 51,000 one of the top five places to live, which so many have done in recent years they had to build a larger high school. The community is very close knit, and there are very seldom any problems between the community and police, especially given that the police are often longtime members of the community. Their children are not in gangs or engaging in any other kind of criminal behavior and are looking forward to going to college. When they graduate, some move on to further their careers and lives, although many stay here and help build the community they grew up in. It is a town that those who live here take pride in. Even the mission statement of the school system reflects this: “The mission of the Franklin Township Public Schools is to provide excellent educational opportunities for every student, maintain an environment that engenders an appreciation of the value of every student, develop every student to his/her highest potential, and instill the attitudes, skills, and knowledge necessary to become independent contributing members of a democratic, multi-cultural society.”

All of this is why the town council meeting on Oct. 26 was packed with students and parents demanding to know why a riot broke out at the homecoming dance, why police felt the need to assault numerous students who attended the dance, why did it take calling police from five municipalities to quell the disturbance, why are there inconsistencies in the official statement which speaks of the injuries sustained by police officers, but not of the students and parents at the hands of those officers, and most importantly what is going to be done to resolve this issue.

On Oct. 23, Franklin High School erupted into chaos when police fought with students at the end of the homecoming dance. According to a statement released by the Township, it began when a student who left the dance attempted to re-enter despite “an existing school practice that once students leave an event such as a school dance, they are denied re-entry into the building.” When the police officer on duty prevented him from doing so, the statement says that the student shoved and attacked the officer, his friends joining in. A second officer reportedly rushed to assist and used pepper spray to stop the students.

When this officer called for backup, the Franklin Township Police Department decided to make a Mutual Aid request for other jurisdictions to get involved.. Police from New Brunswick, Piscataway, Hillsborough, Bound Brook and South Bound Brook – towns within a nine-mile radius – answered the call. The official statement notes that this is a “customary procedure”. Students, their parents and police were also among those injured, and twelve people were arrested, including seven students and five parents.

Franklin Twp. Mayor Brian D. Levine, who earlier this year lost a primary bid for governor, told those attending the council meeting that the council will not be able to comment on the matter at this time. “Due to the incident being under investigation, we cannot respond to any questions,” he said, “but the truth will see the light of day.” But many of those in the chamber, which was so filled to capacity that it spilled out into the lobby, took issue with the statement put out, which was seen as indeed a defense of how the police handled the situation. Deputy Mayor Glicklich said there was a meeting that Sunday with police officials, including Police Chief Craig Novick, and his Deputy Chief, School Superintendant Edward Seto and School board and Council members, where Chief Novick briefed them on the details. “The statement came from all of the people at the meeting.”

At the meeting Chief Novick made clear his concerns to the assembled residents. “We’re committed to this Township, he said. “I perso
nally live here. This is my home. I grew up in this town, deputy chief lives here, this is our community. And what happened we take with the extreme seriousness.” He did not remain in the Council chambers as the residents began to address the Council, which some took issue with.

The official statement has also become unfortunate fodder for those who have been hostile towards the community on a number of websites, most notably MyCentralJersey.com, which is the website for the local Gannett newspapers Home News, Courier News and Asbury Park Press. While many of the comments are the usual responses the more conservative person uses to defend such incidents, many of those comments were racially-tinged, and comments such as references to students being gang members when there was no evidence of such as well as some calling the students “animals” and the town a “zoo”. Meanwhile on the forum for the website NJLawman.com, one poster named ‘Kpdpipes”, who in other posts says that he has been a police officer for 22 years, made a sly reference to the Los Angeles riots and the popular sentiment that then Police Chief Darryl Gates allowed them to go on without any interference by the police. “Time to pull a gates (sic) then,” the poster wrote. “The Mutants want to act up?? LET THEM. We form a perimeter and pick up the pieces when it’s over. And then the same Jagoffs complain you tell them they cant have it both ways. YOU don’t (sic) want the Police around, then pi$$ off and deal with the aftermath.”

Despite the number of such negative posts found on these internet discussion boards, no such detractors spoke up or were even evident in the council chambers when this was being discussed. The only white person that spoke that wasn’t a township government official was a parent who received wild applause when she said white parents are affected as much as the black parents. Many of those that spoke were at the high school when the incident took place, and not only noted omissions from the statement, all but contradict it entirely.

“What occurred on the night of the 23rd was appalling when I arrived on the scene,” resident Chanelle Robinson, a former military member said. “I received a phone call from a parent that my child was injured, and when I arrived there. I was very calm, cool and collected, and I asked an officer, ‘Where is my child? What is going on?’ The response was, ‘Go to the police station.’ If my child was injured, why would I go to the police station? They’re here to protect and serve. The children were not protected, and I did not get served. And I am a taxpayer here in Franklin Township. We all are.”

Robinson also took issue with how the statement characterized the use of pepper spray on the students – which is particularly being investigated by Somerset County Prosecutor Wayne Forrest – as being not having a lasting effect. “If you do not know how to treat this irritant, it will be a lasting effect,” she said. “Those children don’t know how to react to the irritant. It is oil based, therefore if it’s not treated properly it will reactiviate.”

Another resident and witness Michelle Treadwill was angry at how there was more concern for the police being injured than for those she had seen them assault. “I saw police officers from other towns rushing out of their cars not for crowd control, not to just scurry the students along,” she said. “They were getting out of their cars with bats, swinging them at our kids. I saw cops from other towns getting out, spraying pepper spray at all these people here, all these children and parents. I saw young men being pulled out of their cars from behind, slammed to the ground by three or four Franklin and other cops, kicked, beaten… Nobody’s worried about these kids who parents couldn’t find, young girls in the lot crying, mother’s running looking for their kids, Nobody’s worried about that. All we hear are ‘the officers were injured.'”

Meanwhile, Zoe Richards, the Student Government President called out the media depiction. “My mother’s car got blocked in by the police because so many arrived at the scene, and I had to sit there and witness kids getting beat, witness kids get tackled to the floor, witness kids get arrested, parents yelling for their children and they can’t find them,” she said. “I couldn’t find my cousin and it was the most terrifying moment of my life. They don’t tell you about that in the (Home News) article. You guys aren’t telling people about this, and the people and the media are seeing us as these animals, these terrible students who attacked the police, but who was there to represent us and say, ‘These kids aren’t animals! These kids are victims!’ Not everybody there was fighting the police!”

Cynthia Alston took the stand to note an encounter with one officer that illustrated an attitude and a perception of the children that was of some concern. “I asked a police officer while I was looking for my children, Sgt. Russo…he’s telling me, ‘Just move along,'” she said. “I’m asked him, ‘Do you have children?’ He said to me, Yes, I have three boys. They go to this school, and that’s why they don’t attend these events because they don’t know how to act.”

One of the angriest persons to speak to the council was Lester Voorhees, a parent of the student that a number of witnesses said was beaten by the police while handcuffed and on the ground. He spoke on three different occasions to the council demanding answers he didn’t see forthcoming “With all due respect, I find it contradictory to say that there’s an ongoing investigation when this first paragraph (in the statement) is a conclusion,” he said. “It does not mention anything about allegations, insulations – these are stated as facts. So there must have been an investigation that already took place and we need to know who provided that kind of testimony.”

The fallout has started from the situation. Rev. DeForest “Buster” Soaries” of First Baptist Church, a former NJ Secretary of State under Gov. Christie Whitman, called for a federal involvement to ease tensions in the community. That was echoed by none other than Police Chief Novick, who said their involvement would be beneficial. And all functions have been suspended at Franklin Township Schools until all safety measures are reviewed. That includes the Fall Costume Dance that was to be held at the Franklin Middle School, ironically the old High School building.

As the investigation continues, people are going on with the rest of their lives. Residents of Franklin are angry, but they are not letting it consume them. But everyone wants a positive resolution, and the most vitriolic hatred seems to be mostly confined to the anonymous postings found on the internet. But they are getting responded to as well. One poster on NJ.com named “Kim” was completely fed up: “Are you people living in a box??? How many news reports have there been of police misconduct where innocent people have been the victims of police violence and use of excessive force. If the cops were so right, then why is there so much public outrage? Why is there a full investigation? Why is the police chief so “heartbroken”? Come on, WAKE UP YOU IDIOTS! You read one or two articles and think you have it all figured out. Ye little-minded folk so quick to judge and have no clue about truth & facts.”