Oct 30, 2008 9:56 pm US/Eastern
Corzine Attends Incident-Free Newark Football Game
NEWARK (AP) ―
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Several state and local politicians, including Gov. Jon S. Corzine, gathered at a high school football stadium Thursday afternoon to watch a game that in recent days had become a symbol of the negative perceptions of New Jersey's largest city. (File photo)
A who's who of state and local politicians, including Gov. Jon S. Corzine, gathered at a high school football stadium Thursday afternoon to watch a game that in recent days had become a symbol of the negative perceptions of New Jersey's largest city.
The game between Roselle and Newark Central was originally scheduled for Thursday evening, but a series of shootings in Newark last week prompted Roselle and three other schools to refuse to play games in the city.
Compounding the controversy was a series of e-mails and text messages that threatened violence in the city, authorities said.
Roselle officials ultimately relented, and the game was played at 4 p.m. in front of a crowd that numbered about 200 people -- nearly half of them politicians, police officers or members of the news media. Roselle won 48-0.
"Look at this," Corzine said as he stood at one corner of the field on the bright, sunny afternoon. "This is a football game that could be in Summit, New Jersey, or Englewood or anywhere else and there is no reason to expect that there would be trouble."
Earlier in the day, Booker called the e-mail and text-message rumors, which began before last Friday's shootings, "viral fear-mongering" and noted that there had been no incidents of violence at any football games in the city this fall.
"We are allowing fear to undermine who we are as a people," Booker said after a news conference launching the city's inaugural Restaurant Week, modeled after similar events in New York and other cities.
"Right now, if a lot of folks, because of a lot of irrational, unfounded, baseless fears are not coming to the city of Newark, I can't accept that," he added.
Parsippany, Scotch Plains-Fanwood, Cranford and Roselle high schools all initially refused to play scheduled games in Newark over the past week before reconsidering.
Cranford played Newark Central on Monday in Roselle Park, and Parsippany's game against Newark Weequahic has been rescheduled for next Monday in Newark. Scotch Plains-Fanwood officials said they want to reschedule their game against Malcolm X. Shabazz in November.
The controversy offered a glimpse into the often deep divisions between Newark, a city that is more than 50 percent black, according to the 2002 American Communities Survey, and the largely white suburbs, although the Roselle team that played Thursday has a mostly black roster.
Crime, not surprisingly, is the topic that lights up many Internet message boards, where some posters refer to Newark residents as "animals" and suggest putting a barbed-wire fence around the city.
Altarik White, the head football at Newark Weequahic, played high school football in the city in the late 1980s and said Thursday he couldn't remember a suburban school ever deciding not to travel to Newark for a game.
"I've been talking to a lot of people of different races, different classes, and they're pretty sick over this," White said. "We never had a problem. Frankly, I'm appalled that they would even consider not coming in here to play."
Newark's reputation has suffered several blows over the last two years. In 2006, homicides in the city reached a high of 106, prompting the city's teachers' union to pay for billboards that screamed "HELP WANTED: Stop The Killings In Newark Now!"
Last year, three college-bound friends were fatally shot in a school playground in a gruesome attack that drew national attention to the city.
Since then, there has been measurable progress under Booker and Police Director Garry McCarthy. The city is on track to have the fewest homicides this year since 2000, but the perceptions have lingered, fueled by incidents like last Friday's in which a total of five shootings in the city left two people dead and several others wounded.
McCarthy cautioned that those shootings and others over the weekend were targeted attacks and called rumors of a brewing gang war "baseless and irresponsible."
Along with Corzine, Booker and McCarthy, U.S. Rep. Donald Payne, Essex County Prosecutor Paula Dow and other local politicians were in attendance. Sixteen police officers were stationed in and around Untermann Field where there would normally be six, McCarthy said.
Booker, a high school football star in the New Jersey suburbs in the mid-1980s, recalled concerns in his hometown as his team prepared to play a state championship game in Hoboken when that city was struggling to shed its own negative image.
"There was a lot of talk, but we went down and had a phenomenal game," he said. "This is what makes New Jersey great, that people from towns that are separated by invisible political borders can come together for debate teams, battles of the bands, athletic events.
"For us to begin to rebuild walls at a time when cities are resurgent, when crime is going down in Newark and the economy is seeing Newark as an opportunity, it's irrational."
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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