“Do We Have a Plan B?”

That’s the question, isn’t it?

According to an article in this morning’s Trentonian by Brian Dzenis, that question was reportedly asked of Trenton Police Director Ralph Rivera by a colleague and police union official, Lieutenant Mark Kieffer. The occasion was a meeting Tuesday at the Police Department to review the latest Comstat report of Trenton’s booming crime rate, which this week included several shootings, two of them fatal.

These last two murders bring 2013’s total to six, which put the city on a pace to reach three dozen by the end of the year. That the first two months of the year are usually relatively calm during winter weather do not augur well for the coming spring and summer months.

Lt. Kieffer’s question was referring to the fact that “Plan A” as rolled out by Mr. Rivera and Mr. Mack – a plan that involved disbanding the Department’s Tactical Anti-Crime unit, re-opening police sub-stations in the Wards, and arming citizens with a list of phone numbers – has not made much of a dent in Trenton’s increasing lawlessness.

According to Me. Dzenis’ account, Mr. Rivera answered Lt. Kieffer by saying, “Plan B? We’re going to make plan A work.” This was followed with the Director supposedly “going on an alleged tirade that ended with him storming out in anger. The article goes on to say Mr. Rivera did not return calls from the newspaper about the story. His refusal to comment is consistent with his reaction in August of last year to reports that crime had risen significantly from 2011.

And let’s not even talk about the joke of a “Comprehensive Crime Initiative” introduced by the Indicted Occupant, that disappeared without a trace shortly after being announced over a year ago. You can’t even find the document on the City’s webpage, that’s how bad it was.

Mr. Rivera, and whoever he reports to at City Hall these days, may believe “Plan A” will work, but they are probably the only ones in Trenton who do. The measures taken by Mr. Rivera – the TAC dissolution, the substations, as well as other one-off or temporary actions like a gun buy-back and limited deployments of extra State Police and Mercer Sheriff’s Deputies – have not worked. Murders, shootings, stabbings, robberies and assaults continue uncontrollably, and wantonly. People are shot inside their homes in broad daylight, or visiting their children, or shot at during car chases.

Trenton is a dangerous city, and the response of the City’s leadership, elected and appointed, has been far from what we need. Since the layoff of one-third of the force in 2011, the resources available to the department have not been nearly what has been needed.

That’s not likely to change. City Hall is celebrating the award yesterday of Transitional Aid from the State at an amount higher than requested. But that extra money seems to be funds already accounted for as Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT’s), and not really new funds we can use to increase the public safety budget. The ongoing, strangling austerity in the City of Trenton will continue.

But the way the remaining assets of the department have been used by the administration of Mr. Rivera and whoever he reports to in City Hall has been clumsy and ineffective. Disbanding TAC was a mistake, re-opening the Ward substations a waste of money. The Police Department is now almost entirely reactive, with much less ability to be pro-active. Since so much of the city’s crime problem is gang-related, and those gangs are more or less identified elements, it seems to me that a more pro-active approach in intelligence-gathering and actions based on intelligence might be effective. However, I speak only as a layman.

Lieutenant Kieffer was right. The Plan that was rolled out some months ago is simply not working, and may in fact be making things worse.

Do we have a Plan “B”?