By Frank Mustac, Special Writer
In the wake of the recent fatal shootings of police officers in Dallas, Hopewell Township’s police chief was asked to speak about safety and security in the municipality.
Police Chief Lance Maloney and Sgt. Michael Cseremsak, the head of training at the police department, updated the Township Committee at midday on July 11.
Both officers are scheduled to speak again at the Township Committee meeting on Monday, July 25, starting at 7 p.m., when members of the pubic will have an better opportunity to attend.
“There has been a lot in the news lately about safety and security for people of color, and as we all know the tragedy that happened in Dallas over the weekend, there were some issues about safety for our police officers,” Committeewoman Julie Blake said on July 11. “I thought it would be a good time to bring up our best practices and the protocols that we have in both de-escalation in the township, as well as bias awareness training for our police officers.”
“First of all, I want to say how grateful I am about both of you being here and for your service, because this is a very difficult time for all of us and we all are very committed towards even keeping you safe, and really appreciate all that you do,” Ms. Blake told the chief and sergeant.
“That being said, before the tragedy in Dallas, there were some concerns from some citizens in the township about what we do and what our protocols are and what kind of information we have going out there reaching out with people. It’s not necessarily people of color. It’s all issues.
“I’m just going to ask you to talk to us about what protocols you have in place and what kind of training you have so that our township is aware of it,” Committeewoman Blake said.
Chief Maloney responded, saying, “Our police department is very aware of what is going on nationally. For anyone who is a victim of this, of course, we as police officers feel the pain.”
“For the majority of police officers who go out, they do the proper thing. They do it the way that they’re supposed to do it. Sometimes things don’t go that way.
“Believe me, we’re in Hopewell Township and we may be a small part of the United States, we feel for all the officers throughout the country, but we also feel for the victims that maybe have experienced violence against them and maybe was not justified.”
“Here in Hopewell, again, we are very aware of what is going on. We have training that we go through. It starts with our field training program. When we have an officer who comes to us, they go through, again, a field training program that goes over things of racial profiling. It goes over the use of force — when force can be used, when force cannot be used. The obligations of other officers when force is being used – officers have the obligation that if something is not correct, they have the obligation to stand in. They just can’t stand back and say ‘Well, it wasn’t me doing it.’”
“We have the obligation to step in and our officers know that and our supervisors know that. Our supervisors have and will stress that.”
“We have one of our annual training days coming up in August. This, of course, will be one of the front topics that we will be talking about. So it will be reemphasizing the training that we already do, but will drill down into it even more so,” Chief Maloney said.
Sgt. Michael Cseremsak spoke next.
“Like the chief said, it is in the news, we’re going to be going over it,” the sergeant said. “I’ve been doing training for over 25 years now. I always try to do what is out there now, what are the main issues. I always try to address them.”
“I teach from firearms all the way down. I’m always going over that I want people who think. I don’t want you reacting to the thing.
“We do things where we don’t shoot. We do what is referred to as force-on- force. We use role players. We get them to de-escalate, use the de-escalate techniques to verbalize — a lot of talking, interaction with people.
“We want people to use the other tools that we give them, so they don’t go to that. With our CIT (crisis intervention) training — we are not all CIT, but we have officers who are crisis intervention team members, myself included – and we talk. We sit down with somebody and we talk, again to de-escalate. The more you talk, the more stress you burn off. We get them to calm down.
“We’ve been using that extensively and successfully,” the sergeant said.
Ms. Blake interjected and asked, “That would beg the questions, and I hope you would have the answer for me today — per year, what would you say is the average use of force?” Sgt. Cseremsak responded.
“So far for this year, for 2016, we’ve had six incidents where we had to use force,” he said. “The most basic use of force is a compliance hold, and that’s what the majority of our uses of force were.”
“Then there is something we refer to as hands and fist. So it’s basically just a little step further on that continuum there.”
Ms. Blake asked him to describe that more.
“The state of New Jersey defines the use of force from the bottom up. The minimum level of force is really not force, it’s my presence, my authority, my commands,” Sgt. Cseremsak replied. “One step above that is physical touching — ‘okay, I’;m going to handcuff you.’ Anything above that gets a report.”
“So, I’m going to handcuff you, you try to pull away from me, and I do a little bit more. Now I have to do a report.
“So I don’t need to punch anybody. I don’t need to kick anybody . . . I don’t need to use a baton. The simple act of ‘No. We’re going,’ requires a report.”
