CNN
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The New Jersey Attorney General’s Office announced it has assumed control of the Paterson Police Department until new leadership can be installed, saying there is a “crisis of confidence” in the city’s law enforcement.
“People throughout Paterson deserve a public safety system that protects and serves all members of its community, just as the members of the Paterson Police Department deserve adequate resources, support, and innovation from their leadership,” Attorney General Matthew Platkin said in a release Monday.
The top prosecutor said the decision is due to “a number of events and concerns” related to the police department, but he didn’t mention a specific case.
Platkin appointed Isa Abbassi, a 25-year veteran of the New York Police Department, to lead the Paterson Police Department beginning in May.
The state takeover follows a call from nearly 50 state groups, including the ACLU New Jersey, for the US Justice Department to investigate Paterson police after the fatal police shooting of 31-year-old Najee Seabrooks earlier this month.
Seabrooks was apparently having a mental health crisis when he barricaded himself in a bathroom on March 3 and called police for help, according to a statement from the attorney general’s office. Family members told responding officers Seabrooks was hallucinating and behaving erratically, the statement said.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/28/us/new-jersey-paterson-police-attorney-general-control/index.html
