Hightstown Council and Residents Balk at Chief's Silence During Gang Presentation

A presentation Monday night by the authors of the New Jersey State Police Gang Survey did little to calm the concerns of Hightstown residents and council members, who said they wanted to hear directly from Chief James Eufemia.

The chief did not speak about the numbers submitted to the state police for the report, which listed Hightstown as , and in Mercer County with the most gang members and second to Trenton in the number of gangs. His presentation was scheduled after the borough decrying his downplaying gang activity in the borough.

Before a crowd of about 50 residents, survey authors Dean Baratta and Peter Lynch explained how state police officers individually interviewed an officer from each of the state’s 566 municipalities in order to get a sense of the gang numbers in those towns. Mere gang presence, they said, does not necessarily equate to violent crime in that same location, a common misperception.

Furthermore, they said 60 percent of the 119 gang members reported in the borough are “transient” members, meaning they may have only passed through town and do not live here. Changes in methodology since the last survey in 2007, they added, mean that the 23 gangs reported in 2010 would be considered 7 under the old system, barely more than the 6 listed in the earlier report.

However, council members and the public took umbrage with the silence of borough police, saying the authors’ methodology didn’t explain the lack of gang members reported in nearby towns like East Windsor and didn’t fairly reflect the safe environment they said they see in town but not in the numbers that borough police released.

“The results that were published—Hightstown has more gangs than Camden,” said Councilman Dimitri Musing, who disagreed with that finding.

“Simply using numbers of gangs is not a good measure,” Baratta replied. “It’s simply not, because we still have limitations in the survey, and that is just not a good metric. If I was looking at metrics in terms of determining reputation and safety in town, I would want to know crime or population of gangs.”

Baratta acknowledged the survey was “perception-based,” but contradicted resident and council comments interpreting that to mean it was not factual. “I think it would be a gross misrepresentation to say there’s no basis in fact,” he said.

Democrat Mayor Steve Kirson asked state police officials how the borough could address the issue, now that the survey is out and has been widely reported in the media.

“We all know that there is no gang presence as such day-to-day; we don’t feel threatened,” he said. “Where do we go, going forward? We know we’re safe here.”

“I think the data bears that out; there’s almost no crime here,” Barotta said. “At some level, if you have gang members in your town and they’re not doing anything, then they’re not doing anything. If you feel safe, if there is no crime, there’s no reason that should change.”

Lynch, the other author, told Patch that borough police had produced documentation for all of the items Det. Benjamin Miller had reported to state police for the survey. Asked how so many “transient” gang members could be in Hightstown when none were reported in East Windsor, which completely surrounds the borough, he said, “I can only say that I look forward with interest to the response from the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office.”

The authors’ next survey will collect reports from county prosecutors’ offices in order to address discrepancies between municipal reports.

Two officers from the state police's Intelligence Section, Commanding Officer Major Matt Wilson and Executive Officer Capt. John Silver, also attended the meeting. They told the council they would provide them with documentation on the borough's responses to the survey.

Most of the locals who commented, including council members, said they were particularly disappointed that Chief Eufemia, whose name was on the agenda, did not talk about the borough's own response to the survey. He spoke only to introduce the state police officials and, later, to address the police department’s requests for capital expenditures this year. Det. Miller was present but did not speak.

After the presentation, outside the meeting room, Chief Eufemia said he was satisfied with the presentation, which he said “went right to the source to give the borough and the rest of us the answers they need.”

He said he stood behind the numbers his department gave the state police. “The report [to the state police] was given by the most experience detective in our agency, Det. Miller,” he said.

Asked why he did not directly address the concerns regarding the numbers Hightstown gave the state police, he told Patch, “The questions they had were about methodology; they really needed to come from the people who put the survey together.”

Though several council members said, in his presence, that they expected to hear from him while the report was being given, Chief Eufemia said he thought those concerns had been put to rest

“I think those questions were answered today,” he said.

At the end of the meeting, most council members said they were disappointed to not hear from the chief about the numbers Hightstown submitted to the state police survey. Democrats Musing and Kirson said they were surprised the chief did not give the presentation listed on the agenda.

 “We were just as surprised as you are, and I don’t believe this will be the end of that,” said Republican Councilwoman Skye Gilmartin.

Democratic Councilman Larry Quattrone said, “To tell the truth, tonight was his baby. He was supposed to grab the bull by the horns and handle it, and I am disappointed.”

Democratic Council President Isabel McGinty said she was “very, very surprised” to see a presentation on the large-scale survey instead of one on Hightstown’s submission of the data used in it.

“That’s what I’ve been waiting for and that did not happen,” she said. “As a council member I do feel it incumbent upon me to apologize to the public because I expect many who came to hear to the presentation tonight, they did not hear what they expected to hear and they left feeling empty-handed.

“I find this deeply troubling,” she added.

For more on the public's reaction to the presentation, click . To see the slides of Baratta's presentation, click "View Gallery" at the bottom of the above image.