Trenton police official should not apologize over use of ‘hood rat’

Last summer, Trenton Police Director Ernest Parrey Jr. showed up on the scene to talk to two of his uniformed police officers that were handling 3 disorderly persons and a number of loiterers near a family event. It was a free book bag giveaway for kids returning to school. Reports of people causing trouble near children and families prompted Parrey to say to the two officers, "There's a lot of kids out here...there's a lot of hood rats out...send them on their way."

Now a surreptitiously recorded video of the brief exchange has found its way to the internet.

People went ballistic. A number of residents expressed outrage. A city activist, Darren "Freedom" Green, called it unacceptable. Paul Perez, who ran against current mayor Eric Jackson and lost, is calling for Parrey to resign.

Parrey said those words knowing the officers body cams were on, and said them only to the officers, not to any of the people he was referring to. Nonetheless, the sensitivity meters went off the charts. He issued an apology about his poor choice of words. To some it doesn't matter.

In slang terms hood rat can mean a few different things, but used in this context with disorderly person calls and loitering, it means (according to the slang dictionary urbandictionary.com) "a person who partakes in scandalous activity...some of the activities may be classified as illegal."

In other words, in the 80's or 90's one might have said thugs. In the 50's one might have said hoodlums. When you're talking about people who are up to no good potentially interfering with a family event why is it scandalous to use modern slang to describe them? Parrey was not speaking of every citizen of Trenton. He was speaking of the troublemakers. He wanted them moved along from a family event. God forbid a police official does his job.

We talked about this on Thursday's show and most people agreed that this shouldn't be a controversy. However some were quite offended. One black woman said this was outright racist, even though she couldn't exactly explain how. Ironically, the caller just before her, a black man named Lamar from Trenton, wisely had just pointed out that in street slang a hood rat is not of any particular race; a hood rat could be white, black, hispanic, or anything else. Do we think Ernest Parrey Jr. invented the term hood rat? Of course not. So from where did this term come? From the very urban neighborhoods he protects. The people in the 'hood are the ones who coined this phrase. Are they the only ones allowed to use it?

Another tempest in the New Jersey teapot. This is a man who has served Trenton for over 30 years. First as a street cop. Then as a homicide detective. Then a supervisor. Finally, under Mayor Jackson, as Police Director. He's given his all to the community, and this is the thanks he gets? Should he have said "there's a lot of thugs out..." or "there's a lot of troublemakers out..." or would that still not satisfy? Would the words "there's a lot of misunderstood, underprivileged people who may make poor life choices out..." have been the only appropriate ones? Let us know your feelings in our poll below.