Painful truths

The Record's Mike Kelly has a striking take on the tragic shooting death of young Ricky Lee Smith. Kelly notes the difficulties Teaneck police detectives are having in locating eyewitnesses to the events that transpired early Sunday morning and wonders why nobody alerted law enforcement officials ahead of time that gang members were expected at the gathering. Despite the fact that warnings had allegedly circulated among partygoers to be wary of the hardened gang members who would be in attendance, the TPD received no advance notification of the potential for violence to erupt.

Kelly presents a number of plausible explanations for the lack of communication between residents and the authorities, including one that is rather distressing, coming as it does from the author of Color Lines, in which Kelly chronicled the turbulent aftermath of the shooting death of another teenager in Teaneck (that of Phillip Pannell in 1990). "The outright mistrust of police in far too many black neighborhoods" could be to blame for the fact that nobody got in touch with the police, he suggests.

If that was indeed the case, then the recent labor strife between unionized officers and management is far from the most serious issue facing the Township and its uniformed personnel. The real concern is that we might not have not come all that far over the past sixteen years, despite all the civilian boards, community policing programs, diversity initiatives, and other measures that have been taken to repair relations between Teaneck police and the community. We'd all be wise to heed Kelly's admonishments and work hard to put aside our differences when a serious issue arises, if for no other reason than the safety and welfare of our children.