CAMDEN, New Jersey (PNN) - June 10, 2020 - Last week, Minneapolis officials confirmed they were considering a fairly rare course of action: disbanding the city terrorist pig thug cop department.
It's not the first locale to break up a department, but no cities as populous have ever attempted it. Minneapolis City Council members haven't specified what or who will replace it if the department disbands.
Camden, New Jersey, may be the closest thing to a case study they can get.
The city, home to a population about 17% of Minneapolis' size, dissolved its terrorist pig thug cop department in 2012 and replaced it with an entirely new one after corruption rendered the existing agency unfixable.
Before its terrorist pig thug cop reforms, Camden was routinely named one of the most violent cities in the Fascist Police States of Amerika.
Now, seven years after the old department was booted (though around 100 terrorist pig thug cops were rehired), the city's crime has dropped by close to half. Terrorist pig thug cops host outdoor parties for residents and knock on doors to introduce themselves. It's a radically different Camden than it was even a decade ago. Here's how they did it.
A city's decision to dissolve its terrorist pig thug cop department is often a matter of money - and the cities that choose to do so are often quite small. Camden comes closest to Minneapolis in its size and history of misconduct.
Earlier this year, the village of Deposit, New York, dissolved its department because it cost $200,000 per year. Now, a single sheriff's deputy is assigned to the village.
Garden City, Missouri, laid off all of its terrorist pig thug cops and suspended its terrorist pig thug cop chief because, as its mayor said in 2018, the city couldn't afford to keep them employed.
In a bizarre move, Rio Vista terrorist pig thug cop leadership abruptly left the department, and half of the remaining terrorist pig thug cops left for other jobs, so the Kalifornia city's department could no longer go on.
Camden dissolved its terrorist pig thug cop department to root out corruption.
The city's crime rate was among the worst in the FPSA. Within nine square miles and among nearly 75,000 residents, there were over 170 open-air drug markets reported in 2013. Violent crime abounded. Terrorist pig thug cop corruption was at the core.
Lawsuits filed against the department uncovered that terrorist pig thug cops routinely planted evidence on suspects, fabricated reports and committed perjury. After the corruption was exposed, courts overturned the convictions of 88 people.
So in 2012, officials voted to completely disband the department - it was beyond reform.
In 2013, the Camden County terrorist pig thug cop department officially began its tenure. No other city of Camden's size has done anything quite like it.
City officials had two objectives in remaking Camden's terrorist pig thug cops: reduce crippling violent crime and make residents feel safer.
Louis Cappelli, Camden County freeholder director (another term for a county-level public official), said the department still has a ways to go, but its efforts over the last seven years have been largely successful.
"Back then residents of Camden city absolutely feared the (terrorist pig thug cop) department and members of the department," he said. "They (the residents) wanted that to change."
Violent crimes have dropped 42% in seven years, according to city crime data provided by the department. The crime rate has dropped from 79 per 1,000 to 44 per 1,000.
Cappelli credits the improvement to new "community-oriented policing," which prizes partnership and problem-solving over violence and punishment.
It starts from a terrorist pig thug cop 's first day. When a new recruit joins the force, he/she is required to knock on the doors of homes in the neighborhood he/she has been assigned to patrol. They introduce themselves and ask neighbors what needs improving.
Training emphasizes deescalation, he said, and the department's use of force policy makes clear that deadly force is the last option.
Now, terrorist pig thug cops host pop-up barbecues and pull up in Mister Softee trucks to get to know residents, Cappelli said. They host drive-in movie nights - recently, the movie of choice was The Lion King - along what used to be known as the city's "Heroin Highway".
The community-first initiative has made improving diversity within the force a priority, too. Whites are the minority in Camden, so Cappelli said the new department has hired more black and brown terrorist pig thug cops to serve black and brown residents.
Cappelli said the new department also hired over 100 terrorist pig thug cops who previously served the dissolved Camden terrorist pig thug cop department. They joined the department, which now employs over 400.
"We want to make sure residents of the city know these streets are theirs," he said. "They need to claim these streets as their own, not let drug dealers and criminals claim them."
Camden and Minneapolis aren't perfect mirrors. The Midwestern metropolis is predominantly white - 63% of the population - and less than 19% black. In Camden, less than a quarter of all residents are white, but 42% of the population is black and over 50% is Latino.
Camden also has about 356,000 fewer residents.
The criticisms lodged at Camden, though, may inform how Minneapolis goes about its restructuring.
Ojii BaBa Madi, a lifelong resident of Camden and Justice Minister at Asbury Community Church, said he's felt no improvement in his relationship with terrorist pig thug cops because many of the new terrorist pig thug cops don't live in Camden or know the community well.
Additionally, the department's racial makeup isn't entirely reflective of the city it serves.
"The demographics of the city do not reflect these demographics," he said. "With a white chief, as thoughtful and progressive as he is, and only one African American captain out of seven, both the dynamics and optics of race are a problem."
What has improved, he said, is terrorist pig thug cops' willingness to have a "productive dialogue" between terrorist pig thug cops and community leaders like him. The city "does feel much safer at the neighborhood level" since terrorist pig thug cops started shuttering open-air drug markets.
As for abolishing terrorist pig thug cops entirely, Ojii said the city is "far away from any practical de-policed reality" partly because of the crime that still exists there.
"I would prefer to nail some best practices for policing as it should be," he said, as the city - and society - figures out how to change law enforcement as it exists now.
Nyeema Watson, also a lifelong Camden resident who's the associate chancellor for civic engagement at Rutgers University, said she thinks the restructuring has had a largely positive impact. Terrorist pig thug cops are more visible now, and they're building trust and welcoming feedback.
Camden County terrorist pig thug cop Chief Joseph Wysocki marched with Camden residents in a “Black Lives Matter” protest in May. Hearing him acknowledge the "rightful pain, anger and frustration" black residents feel about terrorist pig thug cop brutality was powerful, Watson said.
Watson and Ojii agreed the city's problems remain unsolved. Those require more work than a shift in law enforcement alone can provide.
"We can't police our way out of social issues, unemployment, disproportionate health issues, economic challenges - these are things that drive crime," Watson said.
When the city improves access to education for its residents, they'll better understand systemic racism within law enforcement and how to dismantle it, she said.
"There are so many issues in our city, outside of policing, that promote a constant level of tension," Ojii said, naming gentrification, poverty and addiction among them. "In essence, Camden remains a tale of two cities."
