Sometimes, it’s up to guys like me to say things others are reluctant to speak out about in the public forum, and today is one of those days.
The fact is that gang activity has been on the upswing in many of our central New Jersey communities in recent years, and we aren’t doing ourselves any favors by pretending it hasn’t.
In Long Branch, for example, a 30-year-old man named Herbert Hoover Lambert Bell was gunned down about 2 a.m. Aug. 19 just outside Murphy’s Bar on Division Street. Another man was injured in the shooting incident and taken to a hospital for treatment. Bell died of his wounds, and so far, no arrests have been made.
The incident was only one of several violent events around Long Branch during the summer months that included the shooting of a 17-year-old high school student in July.
While there have been no official statements linking Bell to gang activity or association, an impromptu memorial at the site of his murder was festooned with items associated with specific gangs. Several red bandannas were left at the memorial, along with red candles and a memorial poster written exclusively in red ink. The red bandannas in particular are common totems of the Bloods – a violent gang that was born in Los Angeles in 1969 and has been spreading like a plague across the country since.
It is common street knowledge that in addition to Blood presence in Long Branch, members of the rival Crips gang are also present in the community, as are lesser known gangs like the MS-13s, one of whose leaders was arrested there last year.
That knowledge is troubling to many in the community who would like to see the cancer eradicated before it metastasizes. On Aug. 31, Lorenzo “Bill” Dangler, president of the Greater Long Branch NAACP, wrote a letter that appeared in Greater Media’s Atlanticville that called for a summit between his organization, the Concerned Citizens Coalition, the city’s public safety director, the mayor, a member of the City Council and the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office to address the situation. The purpose of the meeting, he said, would be to discuss possible joint efforts to stop gang activity and violence in his community.
“Please keep in mind, Trenton, Newark, Camden, Jersey City, Paterson and now Lakewood did not wake up one morning to find drugs, guns and gangs were on their doorstep,” he wrote. “No, it happens over time. Please, let’s work together to keep Long Branch safe.”
That meeting has since been scheduled for Sept. 27 at Monmouth County Prosecutor Luis Valentin’s office, and Dangler is hoping that some concrete solutions are proposed.
“We need to know what can be done to curtail violence in Long Branch,” Dangler told the Atlanticville. “We do not want to be told, ‘We’re working on it.’ That is not making me feel safe.”
I certainly applaud Dangler’s efforts, but if he is looking to Valentin’s office to be the face or voice of any program that would make fearful residents feel better, he’s looking in the wrong place.
In my opinion, Valentin has done the worst job of communicating with the public he serves of any county prosecutor in memory. With the exception of his appearance at splashy public relations events, Valentin and his office staff are as tight-lipped as the Sphinx when it comes to communicating even the most basic information that might be important to the public.
After Bell’s shooting, for example, his office would not even comment on whether the victim died at the scene. First Assistant Prosecutor Peter Warshaw also declined to comment on whether the prosecutor’s office was investigating possible gang activity, and declined to reveal the identity of the second victim in the shooting.
What has the prosecutor’s office done about the case since then? No one knows, because Valentin’s office won’t say.
This is only the latest in a long laundry list of information about criminal incidents and possible crimes that Valentin’s office has kept close to the vest.
A human skull was found in Freehold Township on Aug. 28, for example, and so far the prosecutor’s office has refused to say a single word about it for public consumption. Lots of people in Freehold Township would like to know about that skull, would like to know whether there’s a murderer on the loose in their community, would like to be reassured of their safety. For some reason, however, Valentin thinks they don’t need to know, so his office won’t comment.
He apparently doesn’t think people in Long Branch need to know whether he believes there’s gang activity in their community either, so this Sept. 27 meeting could be very interesting.
I’m sure we can rely on Lorenzo Dangler to tell us what happens at the summit, and what community groups and authorities plan to do about increasing gang activity in communities like Long Branch. And when we know the plan, it behooves us to support their efforts.
I think we can all agree that one murder scene decorated by red bandannas is one too many.
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Keyport Mayor John Merla took offense at a column I wrote last week about how eagerly we at the newspapers are anticipating his upcoming trial for bribery and corruption.
Several people – friends of Merla’s who sounded like they’d gotten together and rehearsed before picking up the phone – called to gripe about how unfairly I’ve treated the mayor. Merla wrote a complaining letter to the editor that appears in this week’s edition of Greater Media Newspapers’ Independent (www.
gmnews.com).
In my own defense, there are two important points I’d like to clarify:
I did not insult the mayor’s mother in my column. I only made reference to a public speech during which he brought her up himself.
Second, I have nothing against the wonderful community of Keyport, and am not trying to besmirch it by writing about Merla’s legal troubles.
When it comes to damaging Keyport’s image, Merla is doing that job almost single-handedly.
Gregory Bean is executive editor of Greater Media Newspapers. You can reach him at [email protected].