A fter three years without a homicide in the city, Long Branch has seen a spike in violent crime, with five people killed to date this year, as the rate of other violent crimes also climbed.
A rash of murders in 2013, the most recent on Sept. 21, is something Long Branch Mayor Adam Schneider is taking seriously, saying any crime involving a gun is given the Police Department’s highest priority.
“It bothers you because it happens in your town and it’s ugly,” he said. “It bothers you because people are going to read about it and say, ‘Look what happened in Long Branch.’ ”
The five murders occurring between Jan. 1 and Sept. 21 include the Jan. 1 fatal stabbing of a resident in his apartment on Willow Avenue; the March 25 double murder of a couple in a house on Sairs Avenue; the April 10 armed robbery and shooting of a Point Pleasant man near the Long Branch train station; and the Sept. 21 shooting death of a city resident sitting on his porch on Liberty Street.
Of the five homicides, suspects have been arrested in the Jan. 1 stabbing and the April 10 robbery.
Monmouth County Sheriff Shaun Golden said in an Oct. 17 interview that the violent crime problems in cities such as Long Branch and Asbury Park take an entire community to solve.
“Ultimately, it is a community engagement. Everybody has to be engaged, from the schools to the community churches to code enforcement to the Police Department,” he said. “It is not just throwing a lot of police officers at it and hoping it works.”
In addition to homicides, there have been five rapes, 30 robberies and 301 assaults in Long Branch during the period from Jan. 1 to Oct. 7, according to information obtained from the Long Branch Police Department through an Open Public Records Act request. In 2012, there were six rapes in the city, 40 robberies and 483 assaults. In 2011, the city had the fourth-highest violent crime rate in the county, behind Asbury Park, Neptune Township and Keansburg, according to the New Jersey State Police.
Schneider said Long Branch is not as violent as the five murders indicate, and that it is a “statistical anomaly” to go three full years without a murder.
Lorenzo Dangler, president of the Greater Long Branch Chapter of the NAACP, said he is not sure exactly how some of the recent violence could have been prevented, particularly because some of the murders occurred in private homes.
“Locally, you can’t keep hiring more police officers. You have to have the community coming together to stop the violence,” he said. “I wouldn’t classify it as a violent crime problem, but there are issues and we have to admit it.
In September, Dangler attempted to bridge a divide between teenagers from Long Branch, Asbury Park and Neptune by hosting a youth forum that focused on the rivalry between youths in the three urban towns.
“We are going to keep going after younger people and bringing them under one roof,” he said. “I just figured, before we lose another generation, let’s go after the younger high school and middle school young people and get them before they even consider going down the wrong path.”
He also said even gang members can change their ways.
“To me, there is more to it than just stopping the violence. You have to come up with some ideas, some ways to bring those who are out there, to bring them back,” Dangler said. “I don’t believe that these young adults are just lost.”
Golden said the three biggest problems responsible for crimes throughout the county are guns, gangs and drugs, particularly a heroin epidemic that has developed in recent years.
According to Golden, the county has trained additional drug-sniffing dogs and has increased law enforcement presence in Asbury Park as a result of the spate of violent crimes and murders.
However, for Schneider, preventing crimes involving guns is at the top of the list.
“There is no doubt that if anybody wants a gun, they can get it — legal or otherwise,” he said. “The presence of guns escalates an argument and a fight into a life-threatening situation even if that wasn’t the intent when it started.”
Dangler agreed the prevalence of guns on the streets has changed the rules since he was a youth.
“Growing up, you weren’t taught to run, you were taught to stand up for yourself,” he said. “At this point, you don’t know what to tell the children because you don’t know what [weapon] they have on them.”
Despite the increase in murders in 2013, Schneider said the city has come a long way since the mid-1990s.