NJ Today

Dead kids don't vote

Elizabeth Mayor J. Christian Bollwage said the shooting that left 13-year-old Elijah Henderson dead on the sidewalk on the gritty 200 block of Fulton Street reminded him "of the crack wars of the ’80s.”

“It’s the same issue now,” Bollwage said. "The media loves to couch it in terms of gangs, but it’s nothing more than a drug war.”

Bollwage criticized the anti-gang plan recently announced by Gov. Jon S. Corzine, saying “It’s all rhetoric,” without proposing any solutions of his own.

Bollwage also had no praise for neighbors who routinely hold block-watch sessions to help the under-staffed police force in the area where the shooting occurred, as if trying to address the problem of violence is an act of futility among black and hispanic residents.

Bollwage said that about 20 new officers would join the city’s 360-member department next year before he seeks a fifth term in the June Democratic primary election. Asked what else the city could do, Mr. Bollwage said: “You grieve. That’s what you do.”

Bollwage and the city's Democratic power brokers have for years been at war with members of the school board, which is seeking to curb violence with innovative methods. Elizabeth Board of Education member Tony Monteiro says the district is providing school uniforms to all students, helping children identify as part of a community and providing an easier way to make sure people are in their proper places.

Monteiro is dismayed by Bollwage's approach to violence in the city, remembering a time when the mayor worked with him as a leader of the North Elizabeth Youth baseball League.

Bollwage long ago moved away from the North End neighborhood where he grew up, opting for a home in the exclusive Elmora Hills section one block away from the Union border.

Meanwhile, Bollwage denies that widespread drug activity. prosititution and gangs have emerged while conditions on the streets deteriorate with these very problems.

More concerned with turning land over to wealthy contributors and building malls and hotels near Newark Liberty International Airport, Bollwage seems out of touch with the needs of people trying to survive on the city's mean streets.

Elizabeth has the 10th-highest rate of violent crime among New Jersey’s 15 largest cities, but the police department is below full strength and no superior officers or detectives are black. Most city cops live in shore communities an hour away from the neighborhoods that are increasingly dominated by criminal gangs.

It's easy for those 'out of touch' political bosses such as Bollwage to ignore problems that led to the death of one child last week and say there's nothing to do except grieve. For parents and other residents who live among the chaos, finding a cure for urban violence is a much greater priority that cannot be addressed merely by throwing up one's hands.