IRVINGTON, NJ — Irvington suffered its first homicide of 2017 on Saturday, Feb. 25.
On Monday, Feb. 27, acting Essex County Prosecutor Carolyn Murray and township Public Safety Director Tracy Bowers announced and investigation into the murder of Tajmiah Philips, 31, of Newark by the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office Homicide-Major Crimes Task Force and the Irvington Police Division.
“Philip was fatally shot at approximately 1:30 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 25, at her home in the 100 block of Hillside Terrace,” said Murray in a statement released Monday, Feb. 27. “The investigation is active an ongoing. At this time no arrests have been made. No other information is available at this time.”
Mayor Tony Vauss and his administration have been praising the newly established Public Safety Department for keeping Irvington’s crime rate low. Last year, Irvington had only four homicides, and didn’t register its first until May 20, 2016; the other three occurred in October 2016.
Lawrence W. Bennett, 38, was shot and killed during an incident inside one of the apartments in the Crescent Lane section of the Irvington Housing Authority complex on Union Avenue on Sunday, Oct. 9. Ronald Mayweather, 32, was shot and killed on Montgomery Street on Thursday, Oct. 13, in what Vauss and Bowers agreed was a targeted killing. The fourth homicide, Lloyd Brummel Jr., 38, of Irvington, on Wednesday, Oct. 26, is also believed to have been a targeted killing.
The mayor was particularly proud of the reduction in homicides during his tenure.
“We have the stats from 2000, all the way to now,” said Vauss on Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2016. “We were as high as 30 within that time frame — 30, 26, 25 in back-to-back years. Even my first year, when we got it down to 14, was tremendous from the year before.”
The mayor approached these statistics cautiously though.
“It you notice from my full years, 2015 -2016, our numbers have been incredible,” Vauss said. “The hardest part is how do you duplicate that next year? Right now, I’m beating my own best. Now we’re at 4; zero for the summer, with three of them in October. We went all the way to October with one homicide. We went 10 months with less homicides than Livingston. They had two, we had one.”
At the mayor’s third annual State of the Township Address on Thursday, Jan. 26, Public Safety Department employee Joseph Santiago joined Vauss and Bowers in praising the record low number of homicides in 2016, and announced plans to carry that positive trend forward.
“We did good last year, but this year, we want to do even better,” said Vauss on Thursday, Jan. 26. “Our goal every year is to have zero homicides, because even one homicide is one too many.”
According to Santiago, the PSD’s new Threat Assessment Criminal Intelligence Team, or T.A.C.I.T., was responsible for officers seizing $110,000 in drug money and illicit funds and also played a major role in reducing Irvington’s homicide rate and shootings to its lowest numbers in years. He credited Bowers with creating the team and tasking it to produce the Threat Assessment Report, which the PSD “used as the foundation for what we call the ‘summer plan.’”
The summer plan is “used to reduce crime in the peak summer months,” said Santiago on Thursday, Jan. 26. “Based upon Threat Assessment information that they provided, the township of Irvington had zero shootings through the summer of 2016. Irvington’s homicide rate was reduced by 79 percent since 2014, and reduced by 86 percent from the peak year of 2005. Shootings were down 90 percent since the peak years.”
Vauss, Bowers and Santiago agreed, however, that the PSD’s greatest achievement to date was reducing overall crime in 2016 and cited the dramatic and in some cases historic reductions in the crime areas that the state Police Uniform Crime Report chronicles, including burglaries, armed robbery, motor vehicle thefts and other statistical crime categories.
“The Irvington police, under Director Tracy Bowers, realized dramatic reductions in crime in 2016. They helped record the lowest number of crimes in Irvington since crime statistics were first compiled in 1970,” said Santiago. “While the crime number are great, what they really represent is an improvement in the quality of life in Irvington. We’re creating a new reality about the safety of Irvington.”
Santiago said T.A.C.I.T. officers coordinate with other police units as well as other agencies, such as the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Agency. The new team is based on the realization and understanding “that drugs drive crime.”
“Proactive drug enforcement gets to address people that use violence to facilitate the drug trade,” Santiago said, adding, “They also use a shooting protocol that responds to violence immediately and prevents retaliation. T.A.C.I.T. made 290 arrests last year, 60 of which were violent gang offenders.”
Vauss rewarded the accomplishments of T.A.C.I.T. to date by presenting it with the 2017 Public Safety Award at his State of Township Address.
Irvington has first homicide of 2017, as mayor praises lower crime rate added by Chris Sykes on
View all posts by Chris Sykes →