Hoboken residents converged at Church Square Park yesterday to celebrate the city’s 35th annual National Night Out: which boasts a community-building campaign that promotes police-community partnerships to make neighborhoods safer.
Hoboken Police Chief Kenneth Ferrante called the endeavor “a landmark event” that brings the entire Mile Square City together.
“This is a landmark event that brings together the police, community, businesses and residents to unite against crime, as well as an opportunity to discuss crime prevention measures,” said Ferrante.
We asked him if the annual event is effective in bringing together people from all neighborhoods in the city, especially the neighborhoods that experience higher crime rates.
“Without a doubt, you will see a very diverse crowd of every socioeconomic background of Hoboken is here. We used to host the event at multiple sites, but it became a little click-ish, so we came back to a centralized location where we originally had it here and you see people coming from whether its north, south, east, west of Hoboken they show up on this night,” Ferrante said.
We also had an opportunity to speak with Hoboken Freeholder Anthony Romano (D-5), who said that events like National Night Out are more important now than ever.
“Because of what’s happening on the national scene and with respect to law enforcement, it’s important that people get to know these different [law enforcement] agencies, and interact so that they can see on a first-hand basis during good times so that if something does happen where they have a bad interaction they at least have knowledge of what that agency is supposed to do.”
“The community here in Hoboken has always embraced this event wholeheartedly.”
Attractions at the Hoboken event included music, giveaways, moon bounces and even the Rutgers Scarlet Knight.
