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Crime & Safety

Residents Meet with Police to Express Crime Concerns

Residents from the Eldridge Park section of Lawrence Township, business owners, and police sat down Tuesday to discuss ways to keep the community safe against crimes like last month's armed robbery of a jewelry store.

In the wake of the Feb. 22 armed robbery of Marco’s Jewelry, residents of the Eldridge Park section of Lawrence Township met with local business owners and township police Tuesday evening (March 22) to discuss ways to keeping the community safe.

The meeting at the township municipal building was held at the request of the Greater Eldridge Park Neighborhood Association. Among those in attendance was township Police Chief Daniel Posluszny.

“There’s a lot of concern in the neighborhood,” neighborhood association President Brett Smith said. “It’s a difficult situation – fortunately, not as difficult as it could have been.”

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Smith started out by praising township police for arresting three suspects in connection with the February holdup of the jewelry store in the 1100 block of Lawrence Road (Route 206).

The alleged gunman, a 17-year-old Lawrence boy, was taken into custody just hours after the crime. His two alleged accomplices – who were identified by police as Daniel H. Parra, 32, of Copperfield Drive in Hamilton, and Jean. L. Leontus, 26, of Brafman Drive in Hamilton – were arrested a week or so later.

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Posluszny said police are still trying to recover the stolen money but assured residents and business owners that their community is safe.

“I just want to assure you that there’s not a scene of individuals preying on the public,” he said. “Do we have a problem with this in the neighborhood? No, we don’t, generally.”

That Lawrence Township seldom experiences violent crimes like armed robbery may be what shook up the neighborhood so much though.

“Before what happened, I felt really safe,” Rocio Lopez said. Lopez was working in the jewelry store when the robbery occurred.

She said she’d always felt safe in the township and never expected something like an armed robbery to occur. “Even with what happened, I know we have a safe area,” she said.

But Smith and the rest of the Neighborhood Association, along with police, hope to make the area even safer.

Several ideas and suggestions were put forth Tuesday, including the creation of a Neighborhood Watch program and having greater visibility and involvement from police officers.

Posluszny encouraged all the suggestions, particularly the Neighborhood Watch. “Community watches are a wonderful thing. We’d be glad to start that with you.”

A key advantage of such programs is that people learn who their neighbors are and how to pick out when something just isn’t quite right. “If we know our neighbors we know what’s out of place and we can help each other,” Smith said.

The idea of community threaded through all the discussions that night. The group also talked about what they could do to make the police a more visible presence, in good times as well as when there’s trouble.

“If we only see the police when there’s a problem […] the natural human response is that the police are only here when there’s a problem,” Smith said.

Smith and other community members asked if police officers could perhaps get out of their patrol cars more often or attend events like neighborhood association meetings.

Posluszny was enthusiastic about trying to get officers more involved with the community but he did not sugar coat the fact that the department has experienced cuts in funding and has limited resources to handle the large volume of calls received.

In his annual report presented to township council at their meeting on March 15, Posluszny noted that township police handled 50,615 calls for service during 2010. He also noted that two police officers retired in January and their positions will likely not be replaced during 2011.

“We will try,” he said. “I hate reactive policing. There are times now that that’s all we can do.”

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