A Pew Research Center survey finds most cops believe their jobs have gotten more difficult because of the increasingly high-profile deadly encounters that have reverberated across the country in recent years. But in New Jersey's largest city, officials say there has not been any let-up by the police.
NEWARK-- Last July, hundreds of people took to the streets in New Brunswick to protest the shooting of Diahlo Grant, 27, who was killed in an exchange of gunfire with Franklin Township police.
In Paterson, protestors from the Black Lives Matter movement in October demanded answers in the police shooting of a man they said was mentally disturbed.
In Trenton, meanwhile, lawmakers are considering legislation that would put a special prosecutor in charge of investigating every fatal police shooting in New Jersey.
A new Pew Research Center survey last week found a majority of police officers say their jobs have gotten more difficult in the wake of the high-profile shootings and deaths of often unarmed blacks and other minorities, many by white officers, that have reverberated across the country in recent years. Cops nationwide said they have become increasingly concerned about their own safety.
There were startling disparities, though, between the police view of the widely publicized deadly encounters, and the public's perception. According to the survey, two-thirds of all officers said the deaths of blacks by police were isolated incidents.
By contrast, a parallel survey of the general public by Pew found six in 10 people believed those incidents pointed to "a broader problem between police and blacks."
According to the Pew report:
- More than nine-in-ten officers say they have become more concerned about their own safety.
- Overall, 86 percent of officers surveyed believe the public does not fully understand the risks they face.
- More than 70 percent reported officers in their department are now less willing to stop and question suspicious persons.
- Three quarters of officers said they have become more reluctant to use force, even when it is appropriate.
Kim Parker, director of social trends research at Pew Research Center and one of the authors of the report, said 86 percent of the officers questioned said the deaths involving cops and minorities have made their jobs harder. "That was a striking number," she said. "We don't often see those types of numbers in polling."
Parker said the large number of officers expressing more reluctance to use force or question suspects was consistent among all age groups of those surveyed.
The study involved nearly 8,000 policemen and women nationwide from 54 police and sheriff's departments, who were questioned between May 19 and Aug. 14, 2016. The survey was conducted on-line and Pew would not say what departments or states were included.
Mothers mourn sons gunned down by violence
The spate of deadly confrontations with police in incidents stretching from South Carolina to Los Angeles have shocked many, in graphic videos that quickly went viral across social media and in news coverage.
There was the July 2014 clash with police on Staten Island that led to the death of Eric Garner after he struggled while resisting arrest for selling untaxed cigarettes. Caught on video, the take-down and his final words--"I can't breathe"--sparked widespread outrage.
Weeks of protests followed the August 2014 killing in Ferguson of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer. And a white South Carolina police officer who was caught on a shocking video shooting a black driver in the back is scheduled to go to trial on murder charges in March, after a deadlocked jury led to a mistrial last month.
A new class of Newark police officers are sworn in. (Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)
There have also been brazen, unprovoked attacks on police as well. In December 2014, two New York City police officers were shot at point-blank range and killed in Brooklyn while sitting in their patrol car. They never saw their assailant. Eight officers died in ambush-style attacks in Dallas and Baton Rouge last July.
Patrick Colligan, president of the New Jersey State Policemen's Benevolent Association, said there is no question that incidents like Ferguson have had an impact in departments.
"It makes the job more difficult," he agreed.
Colligan said police work has never been easy. "What we do is not pretty. Just watching a standard arrest is not pretty to watch," he remarked. "But everybody who has ever watched NYPD Blue thinks they're experts in policing."
The police union official acknowledged that "without question, we have our bad apples." However, he said they get weeded out much faster than they did 20 years ago. In the meantime, Colligan said the shooting incidents have created an atmosphere of distrust of all police.
The Ferguson Effect
The finding by Pew that some law enforcement officers may feel reluctance to act has been called "the Ferguson Effect," according to Wayne Fisher, a criminal justice professor and former chairman of the New Jersey Police Training Commission.
"We want police officers to always ask the next question. We want them to ask follow-up questions. I think what were seeing is a disinclination on the part of police officers to ask that next question," said Fisher, senior policy advisor to the Police Institute at Rutgers School of Criminal Justice.
He does not believe that officers are less willing to protect their own lives when threatened. But he said it is clear from the survey that some are saying they would be happier to be less visible and turn the car over to someone else at the end of their shift.
"That's what we're dealing with," Fisher said.
James Stewart Jr., who heads the Newark Fraternal Order of Police, said social media and cell phone videos have put a spotlight on all cops.
"Everyone instantly sees a questionable incident in Iowa or Texas or Florida and they say 'those cops,'" he said. "Those images are clearly not what's going on everywhere or all the time."
Newark Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose. (Patti Sapone | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)
In the state's largest city, Newark Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose has made major changes since the department came under fire from the U.S. Justice Department over some of its past practices. The Newark Police Department came under a federal monitorship in 2016 after a scathing federal report that found the city's police routinely engaged in excessive force and violated citizen's constitutional rights, including the use of improper searches and stops and excessive use of force.
In the past year, the city has seen a significant drop in crime and gun violence. Ambrose said the Pew survey's findings that some law enforcement officers in departments around the country are opting to let crime slide is not playing out in Newark.
"Last year we recovered over 600 guns," he said. "My officers have shown they have not laid down. They took over 600 guns off the streets. We made 14,000 arrests. I don't see an impact on the performance of Newark Police Department."
Racial tensions
The Pew report, meanwhile, said long-standing and continuing tensions between police and blacks were a factor in the survey results.
While it found "substantial majorities" of officers who said they had a good relationship with whites, Hispanics and Asians in their communities, only 56 percent could say the same about police relations with blacks.
"This perception varies dramatically by the race or ethnicity of the officer," said the authors of the Pew report. "Six-in-ten white and Hispanic officers characterize police relations with blacks as excellent or good--a view shared by only 32 percent of their black colleagues."
They said the racial divide was evident on other survey questions.
Seven-in-ten of black officers said the protests that followed fatal encounters between police and African-American citizens "have been motivated at least to some extent by a genuine desire to hold police accountable." But just a quarter of white officers agreed.
At the same time, virtually all white officers said that the country has made the changes needed to assure equal rights for blacks. Only 29 of their black colleagues could say the same thing.
There was also a difference of perception between cops and civilians. Two-thirds of all police officers believed the deaths of blacks at the hands of police "were isolated incidents." Those in the public, though, said such encounters pointed to a broader problem between police and blacks.
Dianna Houenou, policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, saw the reluctance of police officers to question "suspicious" people as something positive.
"That's actually a good thing. Officers can't just stop people they think may be up to no good," she said. They have to have reasonable grounds for doing so.
She said ff more officers are less likely to stop suspicious people, it means they are more likely to be following the law.
She also said a reluctance by police to turn to deadly force should also be encouraged.
"It's not that there is not a situation where they should be able to use their weapon if deadly force is justified. But they are taking a life. They should be reserved," she said.
For Houenou, the turmoil over the police shootings has highlighted long-standing police practices in some corners of the country that have been problematic for generations.
"Now they are getting national or global attention," she said. "The conversation on this has been long overdue."
Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TedShermanSL. Facebook: @TedSherman.reporter. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Kevin Cabrera of Fitchburg, Mass., above, was killed in his Fitchburg, Mass. apartment last month. One of the two men charged is from Newark, according to a report. 
