Details You Should Know about the Paterson NJ, Police Takeover
Has a Taxpayer Funded Activist Group Successfully Begun Dismantling a Police Department?
The New Jersey Attorney General deliberately avoided attributing the death of Najee Seabrooks to the assumption of command of the Paterson NJ Police Department however his comments and their context were telling. The death of Seabrooks, the demonstrations following, and the negative national media attention, were pivotal in the timing for the AG’s office to mash the nuclear button on the Paterson Police Department.
The City of Paterson, New Jersey
Depending on who you ask, Paterson is either 15 or 20 miles west of New York City. It is the third largest city in New Jersey and in 2021 had an estimated population of 157,794 people. It is proud to be one of the most diverse cities in the nation with representatives from dozens of countries and ethnic groups.
The Barricaded Gunman Threatening Violence
Najee Seabrooks worked as a high-risk crisis interventionalist for the Paterson Healing Collective. On March 3, 2023, in a psychotic crisis he called 911 seven times describing paranoid delusions including people chasing and trying to harm him. He barricades himself in the bathroom in his brother’s apartment.
Body camera footage from the initial response recorded family members speaking to officers stating …‘he only smokes marijuana and it must have been laced with something.’
Seabrooks who “was wielding multiple knives, set a fire inside the apartment, broke water pipes, hit one officer with a porcelain toilet cover and sprayed a chemical-like substance in another cop’s face.” Seabrooks also intoned that he was armed with a gun.
Police shot Seabrooks when he emerged from the bathroom with a knife and wouldn’t drop it, according to the attorney general’s office.
The Paterson Healing Collective
The Paterson Healing Collective is a hospital-based gun violence initiative (HBVI) where gun violence harming black and brown communities is declared a public health crisis. While they offer a range of programs, their two primary activities include street outreach using reformed criminals and shooting victims as peacemaking ambassadors and being on call to respond to the hospital to counsel shooting victims to not seek retaliation.
The collective is based under Reimagining Justice, Inc. The ‘about’ section of their website states that traditional solutions:
“… have led to mass incarceration and the disruption of the economic and holistic growth of black and brown communities. The mission of Reimagining Justice Inc. has been to highlight the importance of addressing violence by using evidence-based models such as Hospital based violence intervention programs, crisis intervention, public health models and transformative justice models.”
Dr. Liza Chowdhury, director of the collective and the head of Reimagining Justice, complained in a profanity salted press conference that Seabrooks would be alive today had her team of crisis intervention specialists (like Seabrooks) superseded the police crisis negotiators. However, they boast that they texted and called him from outside the scene, corrupting the police negotiation process.
Unprofessional Journalism Perpetuates a Lie
An opinion piece stated, “During a four-hour standoff, police rejected the help of two outside teams with staff trained to deescalate precisely this kind of standoff. Seabrooks would still be alive today but for the police blocking their lifesaving services.”
This is completely false, but it has been repeatedly reported nationwide.
Just because the collective’s team are certain that they were better equipped than the police to produce a positive outcome on a barricaded gunman suffering delusions, it remains objectively false. No reporters have put in the work, the most basic research, to find out that their actual level of training falls far short of what was required in this situation.
The city and police officials that understood the level of this falsehood share the blame for not having the courage and fortitude to stand up to the mob.
Most of the team, with a similar resume as Seabrooks, were hired due to their experience in getting shot, surviving, and getting arrested, resulting in street credibility. In a 2021 op-ed, Chowdhury states:
‘Our hospital intervention coordinator is a gunshot survivor, shot 12 times in two different incidents, so when he shows up he can say, “I know what you are going through, you are angry and thinking about revenge. But I can tell you, I lost several years of my life to prison because I was living in the same state of turmoil and trauma.”’
Remember the Paterson Police Department
I hope the Paterson Police Department can emerge a better and stronger department, but the odds are stacked against the organization and its officers. The activists celebrated for a moment but have since renewed their calls for resignations, arrests, and convictions.
I began the conversation a couple of weeks ago in the article Paying Criminals Not to Commit Crimes. Please check it out and if it benefits you, please share with your friends and colleagues. It didn’t take much research to connect the Paterson Healing Collective to some of the ‘reform entrepreneurs’ from Oakland, California that I dealt with years ago.
Be aware as your local leaders will show up with ‘proven’ gun violence reduction programs and funding to institute them. While I never imagined I would ever have to suggest this, when these taxpayer funded anti-police activists show up, the true leaders will tell them to take their act down the road.
Keep our officers in your prayers and thank God for Nashville Officers Engelbert and Collazo.
References:
https://reimaginingjustice.com/about/
Another excellent piece!