News from around the region

I thought I would end the week with a round-up of items of local interest from around the tri-state region.

The shooting death of an off-duty Mount Vernon police officer in White Plains by Westchester County police on Jan. 25 has been a developing story all week, centered around a confrontation with a homeless man outside the County Department of Social Services offices on Main Street and rising tensions as the downtown area undergoes fast-paced real estate development. Latest in the Journal-News here and coverage in the New York Times here.

This profile of Newark, NJ mayor Cory Booker appeared in the New Yorker magazine this week. It provides a good look at the interesting city of Newark and analyzes generational transition in black urban political leadership. This passage, quoting veteran political operative Carl Sharif, stood out to me:

"There are certain messages that the community has to have. Certain things you have to say whether people want to hear them or not. But, you see, if you offend people if you offend their sensibilities, they won't vote for you. So you can't say to people, 'Look, my sanitation department is not throwing trash on the ground. You are! The community. You're throwing trash on the ground. Stop throwing crap out of your cars, put your garbage in garbage cans. Stop walking down the steet, unwrapping wrappers and just dropping stuff on the ground, and then calling City Hall and complaining about it. Clean up!'"

For more reporting on community justice related developments in Newark, read here and here.

Finally, the current issue of the Norwood News features interesting maps of 2007 crime statistics for the 52 Precinct. For more on New York City's crime numbers read here and for more on uses of mapping in law enforcement and community justice read here. For links to sources for local Bronx news, read here.