Live Blogging the President’s Visit to Camden

Posted by Stephen Danley in Camden.

Part of the goal of this blog is to amplify local voices and local issues. A lot of local groups and individuals are taking the time to do or write something today, as the President visits Camden, and I’m going to be updating this page throughout the day to highlight that work: 

May 18, 12:15pm

The point of this post is mostly to amplify local voices, but there are some interesting articles today that I also want to highlight: 

This, from the Courier-Post’s Phaedra Trethan, takes a resident-centered angle on the Presidential visit: 

CAMDEN – Ask Grace Williams what kind of Camden she wants for her 1-year-old granddaughter and she has a simple answer: “A city of hope.”

As the little girl toddled around Roosevelt Park outside City Hall Thursday, Williams remembered the Camden in which she grew up: its tree-lined streets and vibrant businesses, a place where families left their homes unlocked and children could play outside without parents fearing for their safety.

That is the Camden she wants President Obama to see when he comes to the city Monday: the good people still here, the ones who are raising their families and caring for their neighborhoods, working and living in a troubled, impoverished city.

Edu-activist Marie Corfield brought education into the discuss (something I imagine we’ll hear more about today). 

Plenty of other folks have been highlighting issues on twitter, including some of my favorite Camden folks: 

And here’s a few more pictures from the student protest at City Hall:

May 18th, 11:45am

As the president’s visit nears, more groups putting out statements to contrast the PR event with the experience some are having with local police. 

Here’s a statement from ACLU-NJ:

And here’s a few tweets about a pending case involving a Camden arrest that resulted in a man being paralyzed: 

May 18th, 11:20am

Here’s a link to a video from the student walkout, this time from Save Camden Public Schools’ Facebook page. Note the “The people have been silenced” sign.

May 18th, 10:20am

Heard some rumors earlier in the weekend that students at Camden High were planning to walk out today in both “support of the president” but in protest of what is happening in Camden. Not much has drifted out on this, but there’s some info on social media that I wanted to share: 

And here’s a picture from Camden activist Gary Frazier, who is reporting that Camden students walked out this morning as well. If you have more info on this, let me know.

May 18th, 9:50 am

Today, President Barack Obama is visiting Camden. The overarching policy announcement is welcome news, a restriction on the types of military surplus sold to local police departments. The event is being held in Camden because of the reduction in crime that the city is seeing, and the new, Metro Police’s focus on community policing. 

But there are undercurrents to what’s happening here. I’ve written in the past about the danger in associating Camden with being an “unFerguson;” many of the struggles, including a police not accountable to a largely minority population, are present here in Camden. But today, I want to highlight and amplify what others are writing and talking about. I’ll update this throughout the day, as other stories break, and other issues emerge, but I want to start with a story that the local NAACP has been collecting data on ever since the move to the new Metro Police department. And that’s how much trouble the new force is having retaining officers. Here’s Michael Boren and Sam Wood, picking up the story. It’s getting a lot of play as an entrance point to the “all is not as it seems in Camden” discussion: 

The number of officers – not including recruits in the current class at the police academy – stands at 359. If no other officers resign or retire before the class graduates, the overall number of officers will increase to nearly 400. The department’s ultimate goal is 411.

An analysis of the resignations shows that the average tenure of the officers who left was less than a year.

Of the 117 the county cited as departing, 27 retired and 90 resigned.

In Paterson, N.J., with a department of similar size to Camden, 15 officers resigned in the last two years. The Jersey City, N.J., department, double the size of Camden, says it had two. Atlantic City’s department says it had none.

Tags: ,

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *