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AI, Tasers and more supervision: NJ's plan to reform the troubled Paterson police department
By
Michelle Bocanegra
Published Sep 26, 2023
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Atilgan Ozdil/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
By
Michelle Bocanegra
Published Sep 26, 2023
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New Jersey officials said they will use artificial intelligence to analyze Paterson police body camera footage as part of a reform effort following a state takeover of the police department earlier this year.
Officers are also required to get supervisors on the scene whenever a person is in crisis or being arrested during a patrol, under a series of reforms that New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin announced on Tuesday. Platkin’s office took over the department in March, shortly after the death of Najee Seabrooks, a member of an antiviolence organization who was fatally shot by officers responding to a 911 call about his apparent mental health crisis.
“There are distinct initiatives, benchmarks and measurements that will help measure our progress,” Platkin said at a press conference Tuesday. “But we also know that the true test will involve subjective measures. Do people feel safe? Do people trust their police department and police officers?”
Isa Abbassi, a longtime NYPD official appointed by Platkin to oversee the Paterson takeover, detailed a lineup of initiatives either already implemented at the department or in the process of being rolled out.
A supervising officer is now required to be present at “all assignments of a person in crisis” — and to be “called to scene of all patrol arrests” under the strategic plan released on Tuesday. Officers must also be equipped with Tasers and pepper spray “to prevent unintended or avoidable uses of deadly force.”
Officials didn’t specifically mention Seabrooks’ death when discussing those measures.
Paterson will be the first department in the tristate area to use artificial intelligence to analyze all body camera footage, according to the strategic plan. It says the systems from body camera review company Truleo, which were procured through state funding, will be used to identify and review “critical events such as uses of force, pursuits, frisks, and noncompliance incidents and screens for both professional and unprofessional officer language so supervisors can then review officers’ conduct.”
“This platform uses artificial intelligence and voice recognition to review, analyze and classify 100% of our body worn camera data with the goal of increasing professionalism and improving police interactions in the community,” Abbassi said.
Officers are also required to carry contact cards with their badge number and other identifying information on them, Abbassi said.
Other measures include citywide public sentiment survey, implementing the ARRIVE Together program that pairs police with mental health workers on calls, providing constitutional training to all police officers, and developing an intervention program to build on state-mandated measures for recognizing problematic behavior in police.
A first progress report from the attorney general’s office will be released in February.
Paterson’s police department has faced years of corruption and controversy, including deaths in police custody, charges filed this year against an officer who shot a man in the back, federal charges of police brutality, and convictions of officers who robbed residents. Paterson only recently regained control of its internal affairs operations following 17 months of oversight by the Passaic County prosecutor’s office.
Those issues were cited in a letter signed by dozens of organizations and authored by the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice — which includes former state Attorney General John J. Farmer and former U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman on its board — alleging Paterson police had engaged in a “pattern and practice of misconduct and impunity that deprives the residents of Paterson of their civil rights.”
Seabrook’s death set of waves of protests in Paterson. Officers pleaded with Seabrooks, who was Black, to come out of a bathroom he locked himself in, body camera footage of the incident shows. The attorney general’s office said in a statement at the time that police eventually shot Seabrooks as he “lunged toward the officers with a knife in his hand.
Though the officials didn’t specifically cite the Seabrooks case during the March takeover, Platkin’s statement cited “a crisis of confidence in law enforcement in the city of Paterson” in light of “a number of events and concerns” related to the department.
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new jersey
Michelle Bocanegra
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