Obama in Camden: 'This city is onto something'

EVER SINCE things started going wrong in Camden, elected officials, police chiefs, businessmen, professors and priests have tried to put their fingers on the fix.

As a chorus, they've called for more police, more jobs, better schools, bigger hospitals, more God, some hippos and a minor-league baseball stadium.

Yesterday, it was President Obama's turn to promote a fix there.

Obama, the first president to visit Camden since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1940, told an invitation-only crowd at the gleaming Salvation Army Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center in the city's Cramer Hill section that the "community policing" model embraced by the Camden County Metro police department has worked there and will work in other impoverished cities in the United States.

"Camden and its people still face some very big challenges. But this city is on to something. You've made real progress in just two years," Obama told the crowd.

Community policing has to work, because Obama also announced that he would seek to restrict the federal transfer of military-style equipment and vehicles to local police departments and would require more training for the gear that will be available to departments.

"We've seen how militarized gear can sometimes give people a feeling like there's an occupying force, as opposed to a force that's part of the community that's protecting them and serving them," he said. "It can alienate and intimidate local residents, and send the wrong message. So we're going to prohibit some equipment made for the battlefield that is not appropriate for local police departments."

That drew loud applause from the audience, which included Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, but elsewhere police union officials were confused and a little concerned.

"I think he's painting with overly broad strokes," said Pat Colligan, president of the New Jersey State Police Benevolent Association. "I agree we don't need grenade launchers, but where would people have been during [Superstorm] Sandy without military-style vehicles? Crown Victorias don't go through waist-high water too well."

Ramsey, chairman of President Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing, said discussion is needed on what type of equipment is necessary for police to do their jobs.

"Some of the gear, frankly, police just don't need," Ramsey said.

John McNesby, head of the Philadelphia chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, hadn't heard Obama's remarks but said Philly officers have plenty of other equipment needs besides combat gear.

"We don't have much of that stuff anyway, but anything that helps the department, we'd love to have," McNesby said. "Right now, we struggle to have running cars on the street. We struggle to keep vests on officers."

Camden's police force transitioned to a controversial, county-run department a little more than two years ago, although the department still patrols only Camden streets. The department has touted a reduction in crime in the city, long considered one of the nation's most dangerous, although those reduced numbers are mostly a reflection of how crime statistics had risen while the Camden City department was being dismantled and murder numbers reached record highs.

Chief Scott Thomson said the president's visit was not a "mission-accomplished" moment for Camden, but rather a moment to highlight the "Peace Corps" approach as opposed to a "special-forces" unit.

"This is about building trust with the community," Thomson said.

Hours before Obama arrived at the Kroc Center, a group of residents sat in the heat along Harrison Avenue waiting for him to drive past them in a flotilla of black SUVs. They wanted a voice in the chorus that claims to have all the answers, and on this morning they just wanted a simple fix to a simple problem, one that doesn't require military-grade technology: streetlights.

"I want to know when they are gonna get someone out here to fix these lights out here," Tyeisha Giles, 38, said on the corner of Harrison Avenue and State Street. "You can't see your hand in front of your face sometimes in this city. I don't know what the president is going to say, but he needs to fix these lights."