NJ cops see benefits to hitting to the streets

A newly created street-crimes unit in Middle Township is getting high praise from police officials and the community, after detectives charged suspects this week in the murder of  a 15-year-old girl at the end of last year.

Created just seven weeks ago, the unit also seized more than a thousand bags of heroin and cocaine, and arrested 17 drug suspects, authorities in Middle Township say.

According to a report by the Press of Atlantic City, the street crimes unit was created in response to the death of 15-year-old Nicole Angstadt. The discovery of her body in a crawlspace shocked the community, it said.

Many street-crimes units are also operating within other police departments across the Garden State.

“Depending upon the community, it is critically important that you deal with those violent street crimes, those are often some of the most violent people that we encounter,” said Christopher Wagner, president of the New Jersey State Association of Chiefs of Police and the chief of police in Denville.

He said these individuals are “street-level drug dealers, they may be gang members, and they often operate with regard to no one’s safety including their own.”

Wagner said in Denville there are 32 police officers, but “I don’t have a need for a street crimes unit because we don’t have that type of street-level crime that occurs here — but in neighboring towns in Morris County they may, and a street crimes unit can be very valuable.”

He stressed local police departments across the state want a proactive hands-on approach to achieve safety and security within the community.

“It’s always important that the police officers are out of the building, out in their cars, out on walking beats, out maybe on bicycles, but out on patrol, taking a view of everything that’s going on, making observations and making perceptions of what they see, and then taking actions based upon it,” he said.

Wagner added what you want to avoid is reactive policing.

“This is where you’ve got an over-burdened department, and they’re in the building and they’re responding to calls while they’re writing the previous calls report from within the building, this is not going to help solve crime at all,” he said. “The criminals don’t see the police officers out on patrol, there’s no denying that the presence of a police officer definitively has a deterrent to crime.”