combating crime has been a recurring concern from residents attending Town Hall meetings with U.S attorney Philip Sellinger and his staff who held the second in what will be a series of the community events last night first was Newark now Jersey City where locals sounded off on issues surrounding civil rights hate crimes and police misconduct on the minds of a lot of people across the state following the recent fatal police shooting of a violence intervention specialist in Patterson U.S attorney for New Jersey Philip Sellinger joins me now to discuss you have been very front-facing your office with these communities holding the town halls last night in Jersey City at a synagogue what are you hoping to get from holding these events our mission is to protect the community and represent them and we can't really do that effectively unless we understand what the community's needs are and appreciate their actually lived experiences so we need to go out into the community meet with folks directly and the best way to know the community is talk to the people who live there and what are you hearing from residents by and large well we're hearing uh about two principal issues people are generally very concerned about violent crime and the concerned about civil rights they're concerned about hate crimes which are increasing across the state in the country and they're also concerned about cases alleging police misconduct you then U.S attorney Sellinger about police misconduct I know you're limited in the scope of what you can comment on here but in the case in Patterson this most recent case regarding Mr Najee C Brooks Community groups a number of them have been calling on the doj to investigate what can you tell me about whether or not an investigation will take place and and what it would take for one to happen of course we are very saddened by the tragic death of Mr C Brooks as you know we can't comment on the particulars of this case but I can tell you that my office takes allegations of police misconduct very seriously one of the first things I did as U.S attorney was create a civil rights division to protect the civil rights of all the residents of New Jersey including relating to the actions of police so what I can tell you is that we look at all cases that have brought to our attention seriously and well I can't comment on the particulars of this we are aware of the demands for investigations by the Department of Justice and um that's really as far as I can go at this point would the doj or is the doj considering a consent decree in Patterson much like we've had in Newark you know I can't comment on this particular case but what I can tell you is that when the sort of allegations that are made relate to systemic problems in the police department when the allegations are not just for a single case but with the the inability of a department to effectively police constitutionally those are the sort of cases that the department looks at very very seriously the potential pattern in practice investigations yeah I mean I know last night in Jersey City you commented about some of the Constitutional injustices that have happened within the Patterson Police Department where the doj did step in um to what extent do you see a need for federal oversight there can you say well what I can tell you is my office as actively prosecuted a number of cases involving the police department in Patterson over the last several years we brought a series of charges resulted in uh eight convictions including a sergeant who operated a rogue Squad called the robbery Squad that targeted Patterson residents stopped them searched them stole from them sometimes using excessive force so those cases resulted in convictions of that full Squad so we look at these cases very seriously and do act when the evidence is available you mentioned hate crimes have come up during these Town Halls you've also said though that the doj camp prosecute its way out of this we know hate crimes are on the rise what can the doj do then to prevent them from happening in the first place well uh the doj is very active on several fronts number one is that uh there's a substantial amount of community outreach where there's a United against hate program where the community is advised of the reporting requirements relating to hate crimes and the community is encouraged to report instances because the more reporting there is the more that we can help deter such crimes in advance and uh while it is true that you can't prosecute your way out of every sort of problem we are actively Prosecuting hate crimes across the country in the Department of Justice and in New Jersey as well we've had several Active cases and will continue to do so when these cases are presented to us what would you say is the biggest challenge your office is facing right now just given the climate that we're in given the uptick like I said hate crimes other biased crimes and the like it's been a rough couple of years coming through covid out of covid what's the biggest hurdle right now for you all I'd say that one of the really important measures of effective law enforcement is trust and mutual respect between law enforcement and the communities we represent and unfortunately today many communities particularly in cities uh people are unwary and they're wary of the uh the weary of a number of issues including the number of hate crimes but also the allegations related to police misconduct so part of what our job is is to go out into the community and help to build that trust and we do that by showing up as we're doing in these town halls and as we do on multiple other fronts we engage we listen we speak we dialogue and that allows us to better understand the community make sure they know that we have their backs but also it helps the community know that we rely upon that we need their tips we need their information and Trust the mutual respect between law enforcement and the community is absolutely critical to effective law enforcement and that's why we are spending so much effort at community outreach U.S attorney for New Jersey Philip Sellinger thanks so much for sharing your time with us tonight thank you Brianna