Miguel Santos of Newark is seen at the corner of Chestnut St. and Pacific St. in Newark, where he was recently the victim of a carjacking.
NEWARK — Despite the creation of a task force that included State Police and federal investigators, carjackings in Newark rose for the third straight year in 2011, jumping 16 percent from the previous year, according to police statistics.
There were 337 carjackings in Newark last year, compared to 290 in 2010. Newark police did not track carjackings as an individual crime until 2010, when they surged, according to a police spokesman. However, the city’s 2010 total was 24.5 percent higher than the 233 carjackings in all of Essex County, which includes Newark, in 2009.
The increases have sparked concerns among business leaders and residents that the state’s largest city is once again becoming the "car theft capital of the world," a dubious monicker it earned in the 1990s.
As in 2010, last year’s increase was driven by organized teams of juveniles and young men who stole cars for quick joyrides before dumping the vehicles, Police Director Samuel DeMaio said. The crews seemed to strike at random, never targeting a specific type of vehicle, driver or neighborhood, he said.
"It’s affecting all businesses in Newark. People are afraid," said Juan Arias, president of the Newark Merchants Association. "When it gets dark, people are afraid to go out even to buy milk, bread, food, butter."
Even off-duty police officers fell victim and a botched gunpoint carjacking last July resulted in the death of Essex County Corrections Officer Debora Ferreira.
Despite the year-to-year increases, DeMaio noted carjackings fell in the second half of 2011 compared to the same period in 2010. However, police records show the number dropped by just three — from 202 to 199. There were also more carjackings during the second half of 2011 (178) than in the first half (159).
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DeMaio said his department is working to eliminate as many carjackings as possible.
"Bottom line is, if we took it down to where we only had one carjacking, would we be happy? No. I don’t want any carjackings," DeMaio said.
Miguel Santos said he hasn’t slept since a man stuck a gun in his face in broad daylight two weeks ago and stole his 2009 Porche Cheyenne. Now, the 33-year-old is considering moving out of Newark.
Santos said he was driving on Chestnut Avenue in the Ironbound section around 1 p.m. on Jan. 22 when a car pulled up alongside his. Santos said the driver, wearing a mask and brandishing a gun, got out of his vehicle pointed the gun at Santos and his fiancee and motioned for them to get out of the car.
"I just kept screaming ‘Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!’" Santos said.
Santos chastized Mayor Cory Booker for touting decreases in crime and argued that carjackings and robberies are causing panic in the normally docile Ironbound neighborhood.
"I would really like for him to acknowledge what’s going down, especially here in the Ironbound," Santos said. "People are scared. It’s getting crazy."
Booker said the city has invested a number of resources to reduce carjackings.
"Any incident of violent crime in my city will not be tolerated," he said. "Our carjacking task force has taken a number of these perpetrators off our streets and made sure they were prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. We will continue to aggressively pursue and arrest those individuals who are responsible."
When carjackings soared in late 2010 — there were 80 in the last two months of the year — authorities created a task force made up of city police, the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office, the State Police and federal investigators to combat the surge. The task force ceased to be a day-to-day operation in May when the Essex County Homicide Task Force was created, said Anthony Ambrose, the prosecutor’s chief of detectives. In the event of a surge, Ambrose said, the task force would be "re-activated."
That surge occurred in November, when there were 45 reported carjackings — the worst month of 2011.
DeMaio said he immediately called on the task force to round up those responsible.
"As soon as we saw the carjackings went off the hook, I called Anthony (Ambrose) on a Sunday morning and said ‘Dude, let’s go,’" DeMaio said.
According to the data, the task force’s success has been mixed.
In February 2011, several weeks after it was originally formed, there were just six carjackings in Newark. But in May — the final month the original unit was active — there were 38, the second highest monthly total of 2011.
Thursday, a 20-year-old Newark man admitted his role in a carjacking ring that plagued Newark and other cities between November 2010 and February 2011, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. The suspect, Gregory Brown, was arrested by the task force last year.
West Ward Councilman Ron Rice Jr. said carjackings often spread fear in the community quicker than other crimes because of their random nature. While statistics show most of Newark’s homicide and shooting victims have ties to gangs or drugs, Rice said carjacks can happen to anyone.
"It’s just a more personal crime," he said.
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