Out of respect to George Floyd and our residents

During this very difficult time across our nation it’s important to remember there are many good, honest public servants who work hard everyday to serve their communities, residents and local businesses. Especially so here in Palmyra.

With that in mind the members of Palmyra’s Public Safety Committee; Public Safety Director and Councilmember Tim Howard, Mayor Gina Ragomo Tait, and Councilmember Michelle McCann, wish to share with our residents Chief of Police Scott Pearlman’s recent directive to his staff, the members of the Palmyra Police Department…

 

All Personnel,

The recent events in Minneapolis are extremely concerning to all of the members of our department as not only Police Officers, but as human beings. Each and every member of our agency has taken a sworn oath to support the Constitutions of the United States and New Jersey. Further they have sworn to impartially and justly perform all of their duties to the best of their abilities. In order for police officers to effectively police is built upon public trust, communication and cooperation with those we serve and professionalism. When these values that we work so hard to build are compromised anywhere, it erodes the aforementioned values everywhere.

As members of the Palmyra Police Department we enjoy a positive relationship with our community. This relationship has been built over time by those that have come before us and continue by each of us who work so hard daily to meet the values of law enforcement and those values we as an agency drafted together almost 20 years ago as stated in our Core Values:

Ethical Behavior
We maintain the trust of the community through honesty, compassion and fairness.
We adhere to the highest standards of personal and professional conduct.
We respect the rights of all citizens and employees.

Protecting the Community
We recognize our primary responsibility is the protection of life and property.
We are responsive to the behavior and conditions that lead to crime and the fear of crime.
We understand that training and technology are critical elements of effective crime prevention strategies.

Diversity
We appreciate our differences and recognize that unique skills, knowledge and backgrounds bring strength to the community.
We aspire to create a police department that reflects our community.
We embrace and include our community by seeking their input and responding to their concerns.

Problem Solving
We work in partnership with the community to identify and resolve problems.
We encourage innovation, creativity and positive thinking.
We are open, receptive and willing to adapt to our dynamic community.

While the civil unrest and lawlessness occurring in Minneapolis and other large cities as a result of Georgy Floyd’s death may seem far away, it is not.  We remind our officers to be aware of the public’s frustrations with law enforcement everywhere.

The polarizing events in Minnesota, are making all of law enforcement reflect on our duty to the public, our duty to treat everyone with compassion and respect, and to the oath each of us has sworn.  As such we have reminded all of officers of the policing principles of Sir Robert Peel in 1829.

Sir Robert Peel’s Policing Principles
In 1829, Sir Robert Peel established the London Metropolitan Police Force. He became known as the “Father of Modern Policing,” and his commissioners established a list of policing principles that remain as crucial and urgent today as they were two centuries ago. They contain three core ideas and nine principles.

3 Core Ideas

•  The goal is preventing crime, not catching criminals. If the police stop crime before it happens, we don’t have to punish citizens or suppress their rights. An effective police department doesn’t have high arrest stats; its community has low crime rates.
•  The key to preventing crime is earning public support. Every community member must share the responsibility of preventing crime, as if they were all volunteer members of the force. They will only accept this responsibility if the community supports and trusts the police.
•  The police earn public support by respecting community principles. Winning public approval requires hard work to build reputation: enforcing the laws impartially, hiring officers who represent and understand the community, and using force only as a last resort

9 Policing Principles

1. To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.
2. To recognize always that the power of the police to fulfill their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behavior, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.
3. To recognize always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing cooperation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws.
4. To recognize always that the extent to which the cooperation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives.
5. To seek and preserve public favor, not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humor, and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.
6. To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public cooperation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.
7. To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
8. To recognize always the need for strict adherence to police-executive functions, and to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the judiciary of avenging individuals or the State, and of authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty.
9. To recognize always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.

 

Chief Scott Pearlman
Palmyra Police Department
20 West Broad Street
Palmyra, NJ 08065
856-829-0198 – Headquarters
856-829-0191 – Police Dispatch
856-829-3770 – Fax
spearlman@palmyrapd.org