Declines in Newark, Camden drive N.J. homicides to 5-year low in 2014

Homicides in New Jersey fell to their lowest levels in five years during 2014, propelled by decreases in Newark and Camden — two of the most state's most notorious centers of violence.

An NJ Advance Media survey of prosecutor’s office in the state’s 21 counties found that at least 361 people died under violent circumstances during 2014 — the lowest total since 2009, when just 320 homicides were recorded.

The number represents a 12 percent decrease from 2013, when homicides hit a seven-year high of 414, according to prosecutors.

More than a third of those incidents took place in Essex County, where Newark and Irvington accounted for all but five of the county’s 117 homicides. The state’s largest city totaled 93 for the year — by far the highest in the state, but a sizeable reduction from the 111 it recorded last year.

Camden reported just 33 homicides in 2014, a far cry from the 59 it totaled a year earlier and its lowest since 2006. The reduction is the second straight for the crime-plagued city, which officials credited to continued efforts by a regional police force that put nearly 200 more officers on the street last year.

Capt. Frank Falco, commander of the Camden County Prosecutor’s homicide unit, said the new force has found success fighting the city’s gang culture, taking down four of its most dangerous criminal organizations since mid-2013.

“The four of them combined were responsible for probably one third of the homicides we had,” he said.

Falco attributed the busts to teamwork and regular sharing of intelligence among the city, county, state and federal agencies that work in the area.

“In my 23 years, I’ve never seen agencies get along like we get along. Not just sharing of information, but having personal relationships that develop,” he said.

Newark Police Director Eugene Venable credited the drop in deaths to a number of measures instituted by him and Mayor Ras Baraka. The changes included the reassignment of dozens of officers away from desk postings onto regular patrols and the creation of specialty units that target violent gangs and other persistent problems.

"It's been very effective. We've done call-ins to two gangs, and put them on notice that their violent activity will not be tolerated," he said.

Venable added that the department had stepped up its gun recovery efforts, seizing a total of 793 illegal guns off the street — an increase of about 10 percent over 2013 — and created regional partnerships to more easily share intelligence with neighboring communities.

Anthony Ambrose, Chief of Detectives for the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office, said his investigators encountered far fewer double and triple homicides than in 2013, which could account for some of the decrease.

While more officers boots on the streets and other changes in strategy may have also had a positive effect, the former Newark police director added that many factors that contribute to murders are often beyond law enforcement’s control.

“Homicide numbers, there’s peaks and valleys. I’ve seen them go up, I’ve seen them go down. I don’t think there’s any one reason,” he said. “I don’t think a police agency should be gauged just on homicide rate, as far as on progress and performance. It’s one of the hardest things to suppress, because most of the times the victim and suspect do know one another.”

Not all positive

While homicides as a whole declined across the state, many of the state’s other metropolises saw less encouraging trends.

Violence in Trenton remained at a nearly record-setting rate, with police reporting 35 homicides for the year, just two fewer than last year’s all-time high.

Paterson saw killings jump from 19 to 26, while nearby Jersey City recorded 23 murders, three more than it had a year earlier.

Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop said the city’s violent crime rates were actually down for the year, and that the small increase in homicides was driven by an unusual number of domestic incidents in which five victims were killed by a spouse or other family member.

“The police department has made progress, our shootings are down this year substantially,” he said. “There are situations like that that no police department in the country can stop, unfortunately.”

Elizabeth also saw its own numbers move in a troubling direction, increasing from just 7 last year to 13 in 2014.

Innocent victims

For many of the state’s large urban centers, 2014 was defined not by a severe increase in violence but unusual brutality toward innocents and those sworn to protect them.

In Paterson, the killing of 12-year-old Genesis Rincon in July sparked a number of large demonstrations calling for an end to violence in the city. The protests had subsided by September, however, when a stray bullet from a retaliatory shooting struck and killed 14-year-old Nazerah Bugg as she left a local chicken restaurant.

Just days prior to Rincon's death, Jersey City police officer Melvin Santiago was killed in an ambush outside a Walgreens before the gunman, who told a witness to "watch the news tonight" prior to the incident, was killed by police.

Santiago's death sent shockwaves throughout North Jersey and the law enforcement community, and was further magnified after an armed man killed two New York City police officers in similar fashion in December.

The deaths of two Essex County teenagers, 19-year-old Brendan Tevlin of Livingston and 17-year-old Cheyanne Bond of Irvington, also sparked outrage in Essex County.

The two were shot just days apart in June — Bond while being robbed of an iPhone, and Tevlin by an alleged quadruple murderer who authorities say was killing as an act of retribution for lives lost due to American military action in the Middle East.

“We had several instances this year that were very very unfortunate, very sad,” Fulop said.

But while those incidents may have made headlines, officials cautioned that it hardly constituted a trend.

Ambrose said that the vast majority of homicide victims are still specifically targeted by their killers.

“This year, the majority of the murders that we had were mainly attributed to drugs or disagreements,” he said. “It’ just they don’t use their hands anymore. They go right for the weapon.”

Correction: The homicide totals in this article have been adjusted to reflect updated numbers from Atlantic County in both 2013 and 2014.

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Dan Ivers may be reached at divers@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DanIversNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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