Paterson NJ, facing shooting spike, adds police patrols, recruits

PATERSON — In an effort to halt the spike in shootings, city police last weekend tried a tactic they hadn’t used since 2019: a so-called special operations detail that increased the number of cops patrolling city streets on weekend nights.

The special detail resulted in 10 arrests, the seizure of two guns and 986 packets of heroin and 349 traffic tickets. 

Meanwhile, city officials gathered on Monday to give the oath of office to Paterson’s latest group of police officers, which the mayor touted as the largest training class in more than a decade. Those 27 recruits — if they make it through about five months of training at the police academy — could bring Paterson’s force up to its maximum number of 419 officers for the first time in several years.

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