Petition Seeks To Remove Middletown's Blue Pro-Police Line

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — This petition is circulating to remove the blue line painted down the center of the yellow dividers on Kings Highway in Middletown.

The line is meant to represent a community's support for its police officers, and the blue line has been in place there since 2016.

As of Tuesday afternoon, about 240 people signed it.

Those against the blue line say it is a symbol that ignores the concerns of the Black Lives Matter movement and ignores the plight of those who died due to police brutality.

"In 2016, in the wake of the shootings of Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, Keith Scott and 255 other black people committed by police officers who almost all walk free today, Mayor Gerry Scharfenberger of Middletown decided it'd be a good idea to place a blue line on Kings Highway in support of police officers, and in direct opposition to the Black Lives Matter movement," read the petition.

"Four years later, and this problem has not gone away. Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, David McAtee, George Floyd and 572 other people, many of whom unarmed and of color, were killed by police officers just this year ... Meanwhile, on our town's most historic street, we have a symbol honoring the police. There is a clear systemic problem with American policing, and our town has a conspicuous, massive symbol honoring it."

This similar petition was launched to remove the thin blue line in Holmdel; it runs down Crawfords Corner Road. More than one thousand people have so far signed that petition.

The town of Flemington removed its thin blue line, which ran down the center of Main Street, on June 6, the day before a Black Lives Matter rally was held in that town, according to the Holmdel petition. They said someone tried to paint a new blue line in its place.

"It's time we demand Mayor Tony Perry and the Middletown Township Committee take down the Thin Blue Line," read the Middletown petition. "It is the time to right our wrongs from 2016 and erase the Thin Blue Line."