Protesters Continue to Rally Against Police Violence in New Brunswick

Refusing to back down to Wednesday afternoon’s inclement weather, protesters gathered outside of the New Brunswick Police Department for an anti-police brutality rally, the second in two days.

Holding signs that read, “Charge the Cops! Not Protesters,” and “Stop Police Shootings,” and chanting the now-familiar slogan, “No justice, no peace,” the nearly 15 protesters marched outside of the New Brunswick Police Department for about an hour.

Tormel Pittman, a city resident and social activist, spoke to the crowd through a microphone attached to a single-speaker amplification system, addressing the Barry Deloatch shooting and the of 19-year-old city resident, Victor Rodriguez

“Should Victor [Rodriguez] have had a weapon on him,” he asked the crowd. “No. Should Victor have stuck the gun up in the air and fired a shot in the air? No. But the officers had no idea whether that was a real gun or not. One thing you fail to realize — the officers didn’t know whether Victor had a gun permit or not, either.”

Responding to the latest blow to the Barry Deloatch justice seekers — the of a motion by the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office to create a special Grand Jury to handle the Deloatch trial — Pittman blamed what he called an unsympathetic judge and unsympathetic prosecutors.

“We’re out here in the snow, we’re out here with signs, and I don’t feel that we should be here,” he said. “And now we have a judge that doesn’t want to pay attention to a delicate situation in our community?"

If the protestors set an example for police conduct in New Brunswick, it means they are setting an example in Edison, South Brunswick, Highland Park and everywhere else in Middlesex County, Pittman said.

“We’re not just doing it for us, we’re doing it for our kids,” he said. “We’re doing this for our entire county. If we can set one example here, we’re setting an example for all of these [police] officers.”

In what appeared to be a response to Mayor Jim Cahill’s accusations in a recent media report that violence in the city has surged as a direct result of Pittman’s influence, Pittman said he wasn’t against honest police officers.

“I don’t want an officer to get shot. If anything, I’m trying to prevent that. The man can say whatever he wants. For the record, Tormel Pittman is not against police officers. The corrupt ones, I am against. I want every officer to make it home to their family. But I want every community resident to make it home also.”

Police presence is a necessity in every city, but that doesn’t mean they have an excuse to take advantage of the power they’ve been given, he said.

Francis Marte, 20, who called himself a very close friend of Rodriguez, said protests like this are necessary to help bring awareness to what he considers a very serious problem.

“It’s a real positive thing,” he said. “What the cops did was injustice. That’s why we’re out here protesting. He [Victor] messed up, but the cop messed up too. The cop could have prevented it because he was there, at the crime scene, and saw everything happen. But they’re trigger happy.”

Editor's Note: The name of the young man shot on Jan. 31 is Victor Rodriguez. An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated his name.