"This is Jorgie's story. Unfortunately it isn't the only one," Police Chief Scott Thomson said as an image captured by a surveillance camera was projected on a large screen, pinpointing where the victim and the intended targets were that day. "Is this acceptable to you? Now is the time for change," Thomson said.
The change he, Mayor Dana L. Redd, and others recommended to the audience of more than 100 at a pasta dinner at Rutgers-Camden, hosted by a city nonprofit group, was familiar in its outlines but not spelled out in detail.
For months, backers of the plan, including Democratic Party leader George Norcross, have said creating a county force with a metro division focused on Camden would reduce policing costs and increase the number of police patrolling the city streets.
Redd said the plan was still in its draft stages.
The challenge for her and other backers is to get past the skepticism of many residents that an outside force will do better than their present police department, and resistance from police unions, which see the proposal as simply a union-busting move.
"I say to everyone in this room, we cannot afford not to act, and if we do act, and things take place, and this city becomes a place where people can live and work and enjoy the kind of freedoms that my family enjoys and many of you enjoy in the suburbs, this city will flourish like it did in the '40s and '50s," said Norcross, chair of the board of trustees of Cooper Health System and Cooper Hospital.
Redd said it was time to correct a system that she called "broken."
