PACKET EDITORIAL, Sept. 26
By: Packet Editorial
We have no idea whether the arrest last week of four Princeton teenagers on charges of complicity to commit robbery will ever make it to trial, much less result in convictions. And we have no idea whether the civil rights complaints filed by their parents against the Princeton Borough Police and the Princeton Regional Schools will have any staying power at all.
But we do know that this incident has heightened racial tensions that are always simmering just below the surface in Princeton. And when they boil over as they plainly have in this case attention must be paid not only to the immediate consequences, but to the underlying conditions that cause this very unfortunate state of affairs to exist.
Longtime Princetonians of all racial and ethnic backgrounds know the unpleasant history here: the separation of the town’s Presbyterian churches along color lines; the segregated schools and restaurants; the reputation of Princeton University as "the southernmost northern school in the country"; the displacement of African American families from Jackson Street, and of the minority-owned Griggs Family Restaurant, in the name of urban renewal.
These events happened decades ago, but their memory remains fresh in the minds of Princeton’s second-, third- and fourth-generation African American families and of Caucasian clergy, school teachers and administrators, restaurant owners, university officials and public officeholders in the borough and township who are (or should be) well aware of the sensitivities they arouse.
Princeton Borough Police Chief Anthony Federico says his officers did everything by the book when they removed four black youngsters from Princeton High School last Wednesday and took them down to headquarters for questioning. We have no reason to doubt him but the youngsters’ parents are less forgiving.
Through their investigation, the borough police learned that the four youngsters two 14 and two 15 were reportedly present on Sept. 8 when three assailants, who have been publicly identified as Bloods gang members, allegedly beat and robbed at least three Hispanic men on Franklin Avenue. The police asked the parents to bring the four in for voluntary questioning which the parents chose not to do. So the police picked them up at the high school, brought them to headquarters, questioned them and charged all four with complicity.
The parents contend they were not allowed to see or talk to the youngsters while they were in custody, but Lt. Dennis McManimon says none of them were questioned after their parents refused to allow it. Parents later told the Human Services Commission their children were fingerprinted, searched and held for over an hour before they were charged, but Chief Federico says the fingerprinting and searching came after the charges were filed.
Who did what, and when, last Wednesday seems to us far less important than who did what, and when, on Sept. 8. Did the youngsters actively participate, or stand watch for the alleged assailants, in the Franklin Avenue robberies? If so, they were certainly complicit in the commission of a serious crime. But if they simply witnessed what was going on but didn’t step in to stop it or come forward to identify the assailants which, under state law, may also constitute complicity we can fully understand why their parents were reluctant to have them volunteer for questioning. Frustrating a police investigation may carry consequences, but none so hazardous as jumping into the middle of a fight with a gang of Bloods or, worse, snitching on them.
We have every confidence that this case will be handled properly. But we’re not the ones who need convincing. The parents need to be assured that the police are acting not only in the best interests of the community, but in the best interests of their children, as well. That can only happen if doors and minds stay open.