DARK DAYS IN PLAINFILD

There are several reasons why I am posting very late on this first and overcast cool day of October. The fact that I did sleep until after 8:30 a very rare and out of sync happening is the least of all excuses.

I had been mulling over two potential blogs including virtual composition as today’s subject; however both are matters of generic interest and not of local impact so they can wait for a better day.

I had been contemplating a follow up on yesterday’s blog concerning the Police Officers who were indicted after “a months-long investigation by the prosecutor's office Special Prosecutions Unit and the Plainfield Police Division's Internal Affairs Unit”

I cannot shake a feeling that there could be a vendetta motivation behind this investigation. When did it start? Who initiated the complaint?

I know Lieutenant Abney and developed a great deal of respect for him when we both were serving as part of the elected Mayor Mapp’s transitional team. I cannot visualize him as an individual involved in a petty falsification of overtime records.

That is a matter of the justice system, and a hope that it will act as should be its function. But there are more important questions that may be difficult to answer.

Could his affiliation with the Mapp faction of the local Democrat party have any part in the County’s investigation? With the long history since 2006 of political machinations involving the Police Division-see Dan Damon’s Today blog of 9/30/14 for some of this history-anything is possible(.http://ptoday.blogspot.com/2014/09/two-plainfield-cops-indicted-in.html)

How accurate and or reliable are the Police Department Records? Could they possibly be subject to alteration or misplacement of specific records? 

For only two officers to be guilty of such an infraction over the past few years seems unrealistic given the implied fractional chacteristics of that Department during the Sharon/Hellwig years.

I agree with those who write that we should not judge these two without indisputable proof that they were guilty of a serious infraction, and they alone among all members of the Department.

And today once again the Courier printed another negative news about Plainfield; the cancellation of this years “Art Show”.

In the 1960s before the riots Plainfield’s annual Art Show was one of the premier USA events in that circuit. It attracted the same professional artists that made it their business to get prime spots in the NYC Washington Square show; the largest in the country.

The exhibition area extended along Front Street from Roosevelt Ave to Grove Street with extensions down he side streets to the brook  or Second Street. It was an event for the city to be proud to hold.

Can we ever again hold such prestigious events? Perhaps yes, only if the people and our politicians wish to upgrade Plainfield; something that seems to be a pie in the sky hope.

Not until the political atmosphere changes can we hope for a better city.