Camden Council weighs in on photo controversy
Four weeks ago, photos surfaced depicting some state troopers arrayed behind a stash of drugs and weapons, apparently seized in Camden, with one of them holding aloft a Puerto Rican flag.
Four weeks ago, photos surfaced depicting some state troopers arrayed behind a stash of drugs and weapons, apparently seized in Camden, with one of them holding aloft a Puerto Rican flag.
At the time, Latino activists decried the images as disrespectful, and the state police opened an investigation. On Tuesday, Camden City Council weighed in on the issue.
Councilman Luis Lopez, who is Puerto Rican, introduced a resolution, which passed unanimously, encouraging a thorough inquiry, which "will go a long way in helping allay community concerns."
"Definitely I feel offended," Lopez said after the vote. "We want an investigation, and we want these people to be trained."
The state police, which said it received the images from a news media source in March, has referred questions to its Office of Professional Standards. The agency declined Tuesday to say where the inquiry stood.
"It will take as long as it takes to do a good and thorough job," said Lt. Stephen Jones, a spokesman.
The Inquirer is not publishing the photos because it has been unable to verify their authenticity.
The pictures include an individual shot of a trooper holding the Puerto Rican flag in one hand and showing what appears to be a thumbs up with the other.
In a statement released last month, Jones said the photos "appear to depict contraband seized during a 2009 narcotics trafficking and illegal weapons investigation."
He said the internal inquiry would pinpoint when the raid took place.
The agency "is sensitive to concerns of the communities we serve and regrets any offense caused by the images," Jones said in the release.
Lopez said he was confident that the state police's inquiry would be exhaustive.
The controversy over the photos emerged even as the force has increased the number of Hispanics in its ranks in recent years, though the number of black troopers has declined.
The agency says it has worked to distance itself from a dark past of profiling of minority drivers, but it has had tense relations with some Camden residents.
The intent of the photos was ambiguous to some.
"It could be one of the police officers is Puerto Rican and he was proud of doing a good job," Martin Perez, president of the Latino Leadership Alliance of New Jersey, told the Star-Ledger newspaper in March. "That's different than if it's a group of white officers that raided a Latino house, and now they're trying to say all Puerto Ricans are drug pushers or drug sellers."
Perez couldn't be reached Tuesday.
The troopers are still employed with the state police as the investigation continues, a spokesman said.
Assemblyman Angel Fuentes, who is Puerto Rican and whose district includes Camden, wrote to state police Superintendent Col. Joseph R. Fuentes, who is of Spanish and Irish descent. Angel Fuentes has joined calls for an investigation.
The assemblyman said the images have been a topic of conversation among his constituents and on Spanish-language radio.
"This issue has resonated in the Hispanic community," he said in an interview. "To hold the flag itself was disrespectful."
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