Community Outreach Blog

On Jan. 18, 2017, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman and members of his staff met with the military community at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. 

Through enforcement of three civil rights statutes – the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, Service Members Civil Relief Act, and Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act – the Department of Justice, including the Offices of the U.S. Attorney, protect the rights of service members, veterans, and their families.

While at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, U.S. Attorney Fishman and his staff first met with senior leadership, military lawyers, and civilian lawyers who represent service members.  After that meeting, U.S. Attorney Fishman addressed service members from the Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marines. Several attorneys from the U.S. Attorney's Office then participated on a panel to discuss service members' rights, the U.S. Attorney's role in vindicating those rights on their behalf, and legal resources available to service members. 

The U.S. Attorney was joined at these meetings by Tanya Kirwan who is currently serving as the Assistant Director of the Justice Department's Servicemembers and Veterans Initiative (SVI).  SVI coordinates with Justice Department components and federal agencies to build a comprehensive legal support and protection network focused on service members, veterans and their families.

More information about legal protections available to service members can be found at www.justice.gov/usao-nj/civil-rights and www.servicemembers.gov.

The people in the photo from left to right:  AUSA Kelly Horan Florio; Civil Rights Unit Chief, Michael Campion, Major John R. Cayangyang, Chief Military Justice, U.S. Army, Fort Dix; U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman; Lieutenant Colonel Dolly R. Livingston, Staff Judge Advocate, U.S. Army, Fort Dix; AUSA Christopher Amore; Tanya Kirwan, Assistant Director, Servicemembers and Veterans Initiative; Captain Tabitha B. White, Assistant Staff Judge Advocate, U.S. Air Force, Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst

The New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s Office, Newark FBI, DEA New Jersey, Hudson County Prosecutor’s office, Ocean County Prosecutor’s office, the Partnership for a Drug Free New Jersey, as well as the CarePoint Health Foundation and Barnabas Health, collectively sponsored two events aimed at increasing awareness of the growing heroin epidemic and deterring prospective users.

Chasing the Dragon: The Life of an Opiate Addict, is a documentary profiling the stories of several people who either abused opiates or had family members become addicts. The film was jointly developed by the FBI and DEA as part of their effort to combat the growing epidemic of prescription drug and heroin abuse. In addition to examining the cycle of addiction and consequences associated with opioid abuse, the documentary also features interviews with medical and law enforcement professionals discussing the effects of the addiction and how this epidemic differs from others in U.S. history.

The documentary is targeted at high school students and young adults and seeks to deter those either thinking of trying drugs or just beginning to use drugs. The FBI and DEA are offering the film to educators at no cost for incorporating it into their curriculum.

As part of Opioid Awareness Week, we participated in two screenings for the film:

•    Saint Peter’s University, Mac Mahon Student Center- September 13, 2016
•    Gateway Building Lecture Hall Ocean County Community College- September 19, 2016

Each screening featured remarks from federal and county law enforcement officials and presentations from health care professionals, as well as panels discussing existing efforts to combat the epidemic, educational tools, and places people can go to get help.

Both events were well-attended by state, local and county law enforcement; doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals; student athletic associations; substance abuse counselors; teachers, administrators and other members of the New Jersey education community.

Featured speakers:
•    Paul Fishman, US Attorney for the District of New Jersey
•    Tim Gallagher, Special Agent in Charge, Newark FBI 
•    Carl Kotowski, Special Agent in Charge, Newark DEA 
•    Angelo Valente, Executive Director, Partnership for a Drug Free New Jersey
•    William J. Holubek MD, MPH, CarePoint Health
•    Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez
•    Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph Coronato
•    Angelo Valente, Executive Director, Partnership for a Drug Free New Jersey 
•    Vikram Varma, MD, MBA, FACEP, Barnabas Health

For more information about the video and related training materials, check out www.fbi.gov/ChasingTheDragon

Essma is a freshman at New York University’s Stern School of Business. As a New Jersey resident, she is a passionate advocate of empowering young people to engage in solving problems that plague their communities, such as violence, hate and hunger. Essma is actively engaged in building bridges between law enforcement and the community and has worked with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of New Jersey in varying capacities, serving most recently as the youth representative on behalf of the office at the Global Youth Summit against Violent Extremism held at the 70^th Meeting of the U.N. General Assembly.
 

1. You’re participating in the Exploring Solutions to Counter and Mitigate Violent Extremism Panel- why is this topic so important to you?

I think as a young person, we see violent extremism spreading all around the world, all around our nation, through so many different forms- whether it's white supremacist  groups, whether it's black separatist groups, or ideologist extremists groups. What scares me is that violence, generally is starting to take such a common form, especially to young people- it’s almost normalized. Even if you tune into rap music that’s very popular with lots of young people, it will discuss shootings and guns like they are to be celebrated.

I think before anything, we have to realize this sort of violence is getting normalized, and young people are accepting it- we need to reverse that. Violence is bad: that’s something basic. Many young people realize this and want to go against violence, but feel really un-empowered a lot of the times, and hopeless. We want to do something about what we are seeing but don’t know how.

We need community dialogues that give community members, young and old,  a channel to take it upon themselves to make sure their communities are safe, families are safe, that these violent ideologies aren’t being accepted or celebrated, and are being recognized for what they truly are.
 

2. What do you see as major obstacles in this field, particularly for leaders in law enforcement and the community?

I think the biggest obstacle right now would be the community’s perception of law enforcement agencies, especially with recent events. It seems to be on very negative terms.

The first step should be to build the bridges between law enforcement agencies and the community. I really think that a lot of times law enforcement agencies only encounter people in tough times. I don’t call the police to have a chat, I call them when there is something is wrong. We should focus on the exposure pre-crisis to make sure that positive relationship is there beforehand.

I think that accessibility is really important, so while we have access to some local police, the average citizen doesn’t necessarily have direct access to lots of other departments that they should have access to. Having that access, that constant flow of the information, would help build really strong relationships, so that if a citizen knows there is something wrong, or a crime is happening, or violence is about to take place, they would feel safe enough, and assured enough, to reach out to whichever proper law enforcement agencies could help.
 

3. You’ve advocated for the use of social media and youth interaction in this field- could you give us a few words about why they are so important to addressing extremism?

I think social media is really important because it’s limitless, so it reaches out to lots of people on a wide variety of topics, through a really short amount of time, and very effectively. It’s also important because everyone has social media and so it gives young people and old people the voice to be able to respond and channel their concerns properly.

Extremism, lots of times, comes out of people being helpless and who think they are doing the right thing by engaging in extremist ideologies to fix their wrongs. But empowering people through social media and engaging them in that dialogue, in that conversation, by really listening to them and seeing what it is that they want to fix you can really pull them away from those extremist ideologies proactively. Overall, it helps with community development, community engagement, and empowerment.
 

4. Could you talk to us a little bit about the Smarts of Swag- How did it get started? What do you hope it will achieve?

Smarts of Swag is a series of social media campaigns that primarily target young people who are very active on social media globally and voice their concerns against violence and hate and promote peace with young people. Like I said before, violence is slowly getting normalized and even celebrated with lots of young people so this would reverse that effect and make a bold statement through people who are very much the targets of violent recruitment. It gives these young people that solid foundation that even if they are met with extremist ideologies or extremist people they are able to say “No, I’m very well educated about this, I know what my position is, I’m not hazy on it, and I’m able to actually say something against it.”

The campaigns are based around hashtags that call for different actions. One campaign is #notoviolence where they state they are against violence, whatever violence it is, domestic violence, gang violence, extremist violence, whether it’s overseas or here, and so on. Another campaign is #givingback, which focuses on getting young people, on the day it launches, to just go and give back to their community somehow, whether it’s helping to feed the homeless, running a soup kitchen, or visiting a senior citizen home. You might think “How can volunteering relate back to countering violent extremism?” It’s because it empowers young people to really focus their energy instead on positive channels that are beneficial to society.
 

To hear more from Essma check out the “Exploring Solutions to Counter and Mitigate Violent Extremism” at the Nov. 12, 2015 conference, where she will be speaking with Joshua Cohen, Regional Director Anti-Defamation League, New Jersey Region; Tony McAleer, Executive Director, Life After Hate; Thomas J. O’Reilly, Director of the Police Institute at the School of Criminal Justice, Rutgers University; and Irfan Saeed, Director, Countering Violent Extremism, Bureau of Counterterrorism, U.S. Department of State.

On September 30, 2015, The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey partnered with the N.J. Attorney General's Office to host the "Building Trust: Strategies to Strengthen Police/Community Relationships" summit at the War Memorial in Trenton.

Approximately 300 federal, state and local law enforcement officers, community group members, educators, and members of faith-based organizations attended the day-long summit.

Opening remarks were provided by Acting Mercer County Prosecutor Angelo Onofri, New Jersey Acting Attorney General John J. Hoffman, and United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey Paul J. Fishman. Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, who leads the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, and Director Ron Davis, who leads DOJ's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), gave keynote addresses.  All of the speakers stressed the importance of building and maintaining relationships with the communities served by law enforcement.

Four panels explored how to improve police/community relations and increase communication:

(1) Investigating Potential Police Misconduct

(2) Constitutional Policing: Identifying and Solving Problems

(3) Community Policing: Increasing Transparency and Improving the Dialogue

(4) Strategies for Improving Community Confidence and Trust in Police

The summit agenda can be found here: summit_building_trust_program.pdf.