Press of Atlantic City
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Mayor Lorenzo Langford’s ban on routine patrols of casino parking garages would interfere with daily police operations, a judge ruled Friday.
“The mayor’s executive order is not one of policy, but an invasion of the chief of police’s right to run the day-to-day operations of the department,” Atlantic County Superior Court Judge Julio Mendez said.
After an hourlong hearing Friday morning, Mendez dismissed a lawsuit filed Oct. 13 by Langford against Atlantic County Prosecutor Ted Housel for intervening in support of Deputy Chief Ernest Jubilee’s authority to have police patrol casino parking garages. The mayor banned routine patrols of the multi-level complexes Oct. 5, a couple weeks after Jubilee reassured the public that police typically include parking areas in their rounds in the wake of a fatal carjacking — the resort’s second within 16 months.
Once Langford issued his executive order, Jubilee quickly instructed officers to stay out of the garages. But he put the multi-level structures back in play less than 24 hours later because Housel issued an opinion backing the deputy chief’s authority to make that call. Now-retired Superior Court Judge Valerie Armstrong backed Housel’s opinion Oct. 20 when the city sought to keep the mayor’s order in effect pending a resolution of the lawsuit.
All of that unfolded after John Palmieri started heading the resort-based New Jersey Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, the agency that assumed control of planning and development of the city’s economically critical areas last spring. That change was one of several enacted by state laws legislators say will revitalize Atlantic City, but have sparked controversy because city residents, local leaders and others view the initiatives as a state takeover done without their knowledge — at least initially — or consent.
Neither Housel nor Langford came to the hourlong hearing Friday at the county Civil Courthouse two blocks from Atlantic City Hall. But both men issued prepared statements later in the afternoon.
“In light of the recent rash of burglaries on the west side of Atlantic City, maybe the judge and the prosecutor can explain to residents why it is more important to patrol casino parking garages instead of neighborhoods. Maybe if more patrols were assigned to neighborhoods crime would be curtailed and these shootings and murders could be resolved,” Langford said.
The city has no plans to appeal the ruling, he added.
“It should go without saying that police professionals should implement the details of the day-to-day approach to crime prevention and solution,” Housel said, adding that “it is a shame that taxpayers have to pay the cost of this litigation.”
Langford has said his order stemmed mainly from concerns about diverting police resources that are sorely needed in residential neighborhoods. In some of them, gunfire breaks out multiple times every night.
“I think all of us have the safety of residents and visitors in mind, as does the mayor,” said Robert Tarver, the city’s lawyer. “But there is no such thing as a free lunch.”
But the legal issue at hand dealt with the distinction between public policy and law enforcement operations — not the justification or determining factors at play.
Tarver argued that prior court rulings have supported municipal executives setting policy dictating where patrols can or should go.
Chief Assistant Prosecutor Jack Lipari, who represented Housel, argued that Langford’s order would hamstring Jubilee, and was specific and rigid to the point that it was too intrusive on the daily operational decisions entrusted with law enforcement.
The September carjacking that prompted controversy over police patrolling casino parking areas originated in the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort.
Three young men confronted Sunil Rattu, 28, of Old Bridge, and his girlfriend Radha Ghetia, 24, of Sayerville, as the couple walked to their car around 8 a.m. Sept. 18. They were forced to drive to an alley off the 500 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, where they both were shot. Rattu was dead when police arrived.
Eric Darden, 20, Raheem Simmons, 18, and Phillip Byrd, 20, all of Camden, face murder, felony murder, kidnapping and other charges in connection with the incident.
The trial of Jessica Kisby, 25, of Egg Harbor Township, and Craig Arno, 45, of Atlantic City, is scheduled to start in May, two years after the couple allegedly killed Martin Caballero, 47, of Hudson County, after abducting him from the Taj Mahal garage.
Copyright 2012 The Press of Atlantic City