Fulop: Gun violence beween students is ‘sad reflection’ of society

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In light of a Dickinson High School student being shot by a peer just a block away from the facility, Mayor Steven Fulop weighed in via Facebook: calling the incident “a sad reflection on where we are as a society in cities across the country.” Steven Fulop

By John Heinis/Hudson County View

In a Facebook post from around 8:45 a.m. this morning, Fulop gave his take on yesterday’s shocking turn of events (sharing a link to The Jersey Journal’s initial coverage of the shooting.)

“I post the good news but an honest conversation about the below is important as well- no matter how disturbing. This is a sad reflection on where we are as a society in cities across the country including NYC, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark etc etc,” Fulop wrote.

“We all have a responsibility. There was a day when fights happen in or after school, students get suspended and parents get involved. The fact that a fight between two students can escalate to gun violence with one of them (16 years old) have access to a gun speaks to how outrageous our culture is today.”

Fulop went on to call the issue both “a national problem and a city problem” that encompasses guns, parenting our legal system and our cities, further stating that Jersey City made 12 gun arrests over the weekend – six being juveniles.

As various media outlets reported, both Dickinson High School and St. Joseph’s grammar school were placed on lockdown as police searched for the shooter – who was eventually apprehended.

Late last month, Fulop used his Facebook page to address five fatal shootings in the city in a 12 day period.

Jersey City Together, a group of over 30 congregations that consists of thousands of city residents, held a press conference last week to speak out against the recent uptick in violence – also demanding a meeting with Police Chief Philip Zacche to discuss the situation.

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2 COMMENTS

  1. The gun culture in this country will never end as long as our spineless, immoral representatives in Congress let themselves be led around by the nose by the NRA. They care more about keeping the jobs for which so many of them are unsuited and getting the $$ from the NRA to do so, that they have completely lost sight of their responsibilities as our so-called representatives.

    I have little hope that anything will ever change. If the gun laws were not tightened after Sandy Hook, they never will be. I feel sorry for young people growing up today. Many of them don’t stand a chance.

  2. But why did Mayor Fulop order his Public Safety Chief to remove the Police presence from the city of Jersey City’s Public Schools? This was a program that provided security, professional law enforcement personnel on the premises protecting the welfare and security of the juveniles attending these schools as well as having the youth of the city become acquainted with Police Officers and learning the important lesson that the police are a positive force that serves the public interest and is present as a friend to the student and not an occupation force to be feared. The bottom line is without the Jersey Police still assigned to the city’s public schools these institutions are not as secure as they were under the Healy Administration. The absence of the police is a green light to those whose have malice on their minds and irrevocable are enabled to snuff out the lives of the most vulnerable of Jersey City’s citizens, the young students who are attending school to learn and improve their lot in life, not be maimed and killed. Steve Fulop attempts to mitigate the situation by enumerating other large urban areas as examples of school violence, in other words don’t blame him. But Steve Fulop is the one responsible for taking the police officers who were specially trained to deal with students as per their ages and grade levels. Now there is no Blue Wall of security and this will only cause additional acts of violence to ensue. Hopefully the Bill Matsikoudis Administration will have the foresight to allocate police resources to where they are most needed to protect the most vulnerable…the children in the cities institutions of learning instead of being potential slaughter houses.

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