Things never change in Jersey City because animal, low-life thugs are allowed to run the damn place

By Kevin Canessa Jr.
Publisher

It’s my City.

I grew up there.

I am  old enough to know what the place was like when we left in 1985 and I was 11. And now, Jersey City, my place of birth, the place I love, the spot I visit whenever I come back from Florida to visit, is controlled by savage animals. It’s overridden with disgraceful human beings who can only settle things by killing their enemies. It’s no longer a place I am proud to call my hometown.

The latest, the death of 23-year-old Police Officer Melvin Santiago, who by all accounts was a wonderful young man who wanted to make a difference in his community. He was on the job for just six months.

It all happened this morning at around 4 a.m. when he was called to the 24-hour Walgreens at Kennedy Boulevard and Communipaw Avenue, in a neighborhood most wouldn’t dare venture out into after the sun goes down.

The report: a robbery in progress. As he got out of the police car he was a passenger in, the suspect, whose name we will never use, shot him in the head, killing him. He becomes the 33rd Jersey City police officer to die in the line of duty.

According to some reports, Santiago asked to work the toughest neighborhoods in Jersey City after he finished the police academy. Imagine that. While he might have asked to be assigned to an easier place — like the Heights or Downtown, he instead asked — on purpose — to be assigned to the district that includes Communipaw and the Boulevard.

That’s how much he wanted to make a difference.

And it cost him his life.

What perhaps makes this story even more disturbing is that the suspect is alleged to have beaten an armed security officer before he fired at Santiago. He is alleged to have stolen his gun. And then, in as brazen a way as possible, he did nothing else until police arrived.

He did what he did, that savage animal, to draw police there to engage them in a gun battle.

And in as barbaric an act as is humanly possible, the moment Santiago opened his cruiser door to ensure everyone else’s safety, the suspect opened fire.

He never stood a chance.

What’s incredibly upsetting here is that no matter who leads the city — Jerry Healy, Steve Fulop, whomever — the results of crime in the city remain the same. Innocent people, many of whom are not police officers, are losing their lives simply because they live in Jersey City and have no place else to go or turn to.

They are dying because they take their trash out and bullets fly.

They are dying because they live in neighborhoods where the police don’t rule things, but instead, they live in neighborhoods that are flooded with drug-dealing low-lives who have no regard for human life.

They are dying because they want to try to pretend to not be petrified of where they live.

And no matter what any leader does, or tries, it never, ever gets better.

A Google Maps image of the Walgreens where Melvin Santiago was murdered.

It never gets better because the same residents who lose family members violently are unwilling and unable to open their mouths when they see a crime committed and know who committed the crime. They simply cannot because if they do, they’ll be next.

It never gets better because the city is grossly under-patrolled. There are only 800 or so officers on the streets of the state’s second-largest city.

It never gets better because leadership will not do all that it takes to ensure the streets ARE patrolled properly — by radio cars, and foot-patrol units, and bicycle units.

It never gets better because no one seems to be willing to grow the balls to make it better.

The mayor can say all he wants that he wants to be tough on crime. And yet a year into his first term, nothing has improved.

The residents can cry out every single day about the conditions in Jersey City — and they can do it until they’re blue in the face — but until they’re willing to speak out and help to put away the thugs who control this city, nothing will improve.

Steve Fulop, mayor of Jersey City

I never expect the day will come, in my lifetime, that things will be better on “The Hill” as it’s known, in Jersey City.  Because I have no faith in the leaders. And I have even less faith the people will step it up and start talking.

I want to be wrong. I so want to be wrong. I want the city I love so much to return to how it was decades ago, when my grandmother and grandfather saw it fit to raise a family of seven there, without a second thought that maybe it would be better elsewhere.

I want the killing to stop.

But I can’t hold my breath while waiting, because every time it happens — like it did with Marc Dinardo or Domenick Infantes before Santiago — I always say I hope and pray this is the last … and it never is.

I woke this morning and learned that Melvin Santiago was violently taken from this world. It shook me then — and it still has me sick to my stomach. He didn’t need to die. Nope. Not one bit. But he did.

And that’s because Jersey City is run and controlled by savage animals.

And this time, I can’t say I hope this never happens again.

I know, not too far from now, it will.

And it will again and again and again.

And again.

Rest in peace, Police Officer Melvin Santiago. You will be forever missed, even by those who never knew you.

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