Newark Now Requires Most Plainclothes Cops To Wear Body Cameras

NEWARK, NJ — Newark police officers, even those in “plainclothes,” will have to wear body cameras when they’re on duty, city officials announced Tuesday.

The new policy takes effect immediately, Mayor Ras Baraka and Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose said in a joint statement.

There will be three exceptions to the order:

• Personnel assigned as liaisons to federal, state, or county agencies will be guided by those agencies’ policies
• Officers assigned to surveillance duties only will not be required to wear a bodycam (however, all officers assigned to the “take-down” arrest in such cases must wear the bodycam)
• Officers who make a written request to the public safety director and receive his or her authorization not to wear the bodycam (such requests must give the operational or safety reasons for not wearing the bodycam)

According to city officials:

“Officers assigned to work street-level enforcement in a plainclothes capacity shall have the option of wearing their uniform while operating unmarked or conventional vehicles in the field, as directed by their supervisor. Officers assigned to work street-level enforcement in a plainclothes capacity shall have the option of wearing their uniform while operating unmarked or conventional vehicles in the field, as directed by their supervisor.”

The decision comes less than a month after a shooting involving a plainclothes Newark police officer that killed a 39-year-old South Orange resident in Newark on New Year's Day. Since then, some community members have rallied in the name of the deceased man, Carl Dorsey III, and demanded further investigation into the shooting. Read More: Newark Mayor Says Police Shooting Is 'Tragic, Disturbing, Incomplete'

“We are making immense strides in making Newark a safer city, and our police division a more transparent one,” Baraka said Tuesday.

“Last year, we were proud that our officers did not fire a single shot,” he pointed out. “This year, we are taking our standards and procedures to a higher level, to ensure that our officers protect and serve their residents properly, and our residents and visitors can feel safer.”

Ambrose, who rolled out the new policy on Tuesday, said that it’s “yet another step in the right direction to continue building trust and transparency with the people whom we serve.”

The officer involved in the shooting, Rod Simpkins, a detective with the Newark Police Department, is on administrative leave until the investigation ends, Baraka said.

The New Jersey Attorney General's Office has released the following statement about the shooting:

“According to the preliminary investigation, the shooting occurred shortly after midnight near Woodland Avenue and South 11th Street in Newark, N.J. Officers responded to the area on reports of gunfire. After Detective Simpkins got out of his car, there was brief physical contact between him and Mr. Dorsey and Detective Simpkins fired his 9mm service weapon one time, striking Mr. Dorsey. No firearm was recovered from Mr. Dorsey or his immediate area. Officers provided medical aid to Mr. Dorsey and he was transported by emergency medical personnel to University Hospital in Newark, where he was pronounced deceased at approximately 1:37 a.m. While the Newark Police Department employs body and dash cameras, there is no police video of the incident. The officers in this case, including Detective Simpkins, were in plain clothes and in unmarked vehicles, and were not equipped with body or dash cameras.”

The fatal shooting remains under investigation by the New Jersey Attorney General's Office of Public Integrity and Accountability. Anyone with information can contact the Attorney General's Office at 609-292-4925, or 609-984-5828.

In the wake of the New Year’s Day shooting, Baraka said that – in addition to the bodycam expansion – his office planned to ask that all information be turned over to the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board.

On Wednesday, Richard Robinson, president of the Newark Civilian Complaint Review Board released a statement on behalf of the board about the shooting. It read:

"The Newark Civilian Complaint Review Board would like to acknowledge our awareness of the New Year’s Day Newark Police (NPD) involved shooting, which resulted in the death of 39 year-old Carl Dorsey III. The CCRB will continue to monitor the situation and gather information to be best of service to the community when called upon for intervention following the requisite steps as mandated by bill S1036, the laws of the State of New Jersey as it relates to our investigatory powers and our bylaws as they currently stand. This matter will be considered a priority and treated with an effort of absolute transparency by the Newark CCRB."

Meanwhile, Newark residents and local activists continue to rally for more civilian-led police oversight in Dorsey’s name.

A local social justice advocacy group, Newark Communities for Accountable Policing (NCAP), released a statement calling for change in the wake of the shooting on New Year’s Day.

“The New Year came in with a horrible police killing in Newark, and with an ugly mob attack on the nation’s Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of the presidential election,” wrote Zayid Muhammad, an organizer with the NCAP.

“Both instances challenge us all to not yield to the political convenience of merely ‘going back to normal,’” Muhammad continued. “Although our previous ‘normal’ was better than the last four years, even that normal is begging us to do more.”

According to the NCAP, there needs to be legislation that mandates a strong civilian review board in any community that wants one. And it needs to have teeth, including subpoena powers, which the New Jersey Supreme Court recently ruled that Newark’s own board doesn’t have.

• See related article: NJ Supreme Court Limits Newark's Power To Probe Police Abuse
• See related article: Newark Tries To Bring Battle Over Policing To US Supreme Court

The NCAP also said that the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office needs to keep up its public reporting regarding probes into police-involved shootings, as a 2019 state law requires it to do.

“The police killing of Carl Dorsey is not the first since the bill went into effect,” the group stated. “The public has yet to see any meaningful disclosure on police-related deaths in Passaic, Orange, Stafford, and most recently in Asbury Park with the police killing of Hasani Best.”

Another local advocacy group, the Newark AntiViolence Coalition, plans to sponsor a vigil and rally for Dorsey on Thursday, Jan. 28 at 5 p.m. at South 11th Street and Woodland Avenue, the site of the shooting.

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