By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Princeton Police decided to have officers going out in twos on patrols in what is seen as a precautionary “short-term” security measure that took effect Monday, this amid high tensions nationally in the wake of two police shootings and five police officers killed in Dallas.
“We have two officers in a car now just to try and provide a little more safety and security from the officers’ standpoint,” police Lt. Robert Toole told the Princeton Council on Monday in delivering the April and May police reports to the governing body.
The department said it had not determined how long the arrangement would last, although police have flexibility to revert to one officer per car if need be.
“We re-deploy officers as we need to depending on the workload,” he said. “If something happens (and) we need to split the cars up, then we split them up again.”
He added the department is reviewing civil disturbance procedures and protocols, as Princeton is seeking to learn what it can from the high-profile clashes around the country between police and members of the public.
“We’ve been very lucky in Princeton and the general Mercer County area, and we’re hoping to hold fast with that,” he said. “But we’re continuing to look at things to try and improve things and continue to take steps to prevent something crazy from happening here.”
Lt. Toole’s comments about police doubling up drew little to no comment or reaction from the council, with some members later raising concerns about police tactics and data showing a racial disparity in traffic stops and arrests.
Councilman Bernard P. Miller touched on how an anecdotal review of names of people picked up for warrant arrests show many are Latino or might be other minorities. He said officials are concerned if such arrests are “heavily weighted toward” minorities and whether something can be done to get a “better understanding of why it is happening that way.”
Lt. Toole said a lot of warrant arrests are generated through motor vehicle stops for a violation, while police also do random license plate checks. But that led Councilwoman Jenny Crumiller to question why police did those checks in the first place.
“I don’t really care about warrants from people. It doesn’t really threaten the safety of our residents,” she said.
She suggested that if police stopped doing random checks, “we wouldn’t catch anybody and (we wouldn’t) spend the time doing it.” She later said that if police are not looking for a specific person, they appear to be “fishing.”
In response, Lt. Toole said random checks are a tool police use nationwide to determine if people have violations, for anything from driving an unregistered car to having an arrest warrant for a serious offense.
“As we stop somebody for whatever violation — speeding, red light, failure to yield to a pedestrian — every officer I know, myself included, I’m going to check that person to make sure they’re not a bad guy,” he said. “Because most of our contacts are people we have no idea who they are until we walk up to see them.”
The department self-reported 5,213 motor vehicle stops through May, with white drivers accounting for 60.4 percent of stops, black drivers 13.68 and white Hispanics 11.24 and the rest all others.
Out of 287 arrests through May, 44 percent of them were white, 29 percent black, eight percent Asian and 19 percent Hispanic.
Councilwoman Jo S. Butler said the data suggests that minorities are being arrested at a rate “greater than our community demographic.”
“Some of that explanation, I think, rests with the demographic that may pass through Princeton on a daily basis,” she said.
At the same, she said council members get lots of quality of life complaints about speeding and other offenses. A question she raised for officials is how aggressively do they want police to address those concerns.
“And so if police are going to follow up on those things,” she said, “then they are, perhaps, going to impact minorities at a greater rate.”
“There may be a trade-off,” she continued. “And we need to have that discussion about …the degree to which we want to purse the quality of life issues.”
The town is paying the Rutgers University Police Institute to study motor vehicle and pedestrian stop data.
