India Post News Service

NEW JERSEY: A series of more than 50 attacks over the last four months against Indian American residents in Durham Woods, an Edison apartment complex, by a gang of juveniles has become a major cause for alarm in the community in New Jersey. Following complaints in eight cases, Edison police last week arrested four suspects and took into custody three other suspects on various charges of assault, robbery and theft. Despite the arrests and increased police patrolling in the complex, the predominant Indian residents in Durham Woods feel anything but safe.

Although the Indians are convinced the attacks are hate-motivated, the Edison Administration, which has been encouraging the affected tenants to come forward and get legal recourse, says there is no evidence of bias in the attacks. The arrests were announced at a press conference by Mayor Choi, at his office in the Edison Municipal on Oct 17.

"We wanted to inform the public that great progress was made in the recent series of incidents where all the victims were Americans of Indian descent," he said. "Over the last 48 hours we brought into custody 7 suspects — all juveniles — four of whom were arrested and they have a pending court date, three of them are going through juvenile probationary program." All of the suspects are African American kids in their late teens, according to these tenants at Durham Woods.

The first incident occurred on June 25 when one of the residents was simply punched in the face by some Black kids. Another Indian resident who witnessed the assault helped the victim and called the police. "Since then," says Vasu, who is now spearheading the ad hoc tenants association formed to tackle the issue of crimes against Indians, "there have been at least 55 incidents of assault and robbery which have come to light in the meetings with the tenants." Speaking to India Post after the press conference, Choi said, "Officially, there are nine cases and some unreported ones. But we don’t believe it comes anywhere close to 50 incidents."

"We take such incidents seriously," Choi added. "For the Durham Woods apartment complex, this is an anomaly; this has never happened before in Edison. The way that crime works in suburban communities like in Edison, is it comes in waves, there isn’t any overall pattern. And this occurred in just a wave. We are hoping that this will be solved." Choi categorically said the incidents were not hate related. "We don’t consider this bias crime. It was young kids doing stupid things... they did it because the victims were there, it was a convenient opportunity.

There’s no evidence to show that there’s a pattern here, we don’t consider this a bias crime. There isn’t evidence that they were only going after Indians because there were no racial slurs used during the crime. The Mayor said, being predominantly an Indian complex, anyone the juveniles picked on could have turned out to be an Indian. The focus now, however, was on crime prevention, the Mayor said. "What’s important here is that a partnership be formed between the police officers and residents in the Indian American community."

What is perhaps most disconcerting is the reluctance of the victims to come forward and register police complaints, for fear of retribution and lack of trust in the local police. Vasu and a couple of other residents who have been knocking on doors in the complex asking people to come out and speak up against the crimes are frustrated over the general sense of timidity among the Indian residents. "Even some of those who have been assaulted do not want to talk about it because they are scared these kids might cause them more harm," said one of the tenants on condition of anonymity.

"There are people here who are afraid to complain to the management even about small repairs within the apartment." Said another tenant, "I feel 100 percent sure that they are targeting Indians only. These kids are not normal. I heard from police that these kids are involved in crimes at school too." "It’s hard to say exactly why they are not coming forward to complain," said Mayor Choi. "We had to build a trust and that took some time with the police officers and residents. These Indian Americans are making great contributions to our society, but they are new immigrants and there is a discomfort with law enforcement."

Choi further said the Indian community was new to the country and did not know how the law enforcement process works. "They didn’t know if they had to get attorneys to do this. We’ve been communicating with them since the first incident, but the greatest problem here was there was no partnership between the residents and the police — there has to be cooperation for police officers to be able to process a crime." "When you have recent arrivals, it is sometimes difficult to communicate that it requires some sort of understanding of the legal system, how the police work happens, what are peoples’ rights, and the fact that everyone will be given an attorney if they don’t already have one," the Mayor continued.

"Once we developed that cooperation and trust, we were able to prosecute the cases." Dr. Sudhanshu Prasad, who is running for City Council on a Democratic ticket, has also been visiting Durham Woods to meet with and understand the residents’ concerns. He echoed the Mayor’s stand that these crimes were not hate related. "I see it as a crime of convenience," he told India Post. "These are delinquent juveniles and I think the residents are definitely targeted as easy victims. Most of the victims did not report the crime and this acted as an encouragement to the perpetrators." Dr. Prasad said, "I think one reason that people are not reporting the crimes is they are not aware that reporting crime is not an offense. Everybody has a civic duty to report any crime whether it happens to them or whether they witness it."

Dr. Prasad was of the opinion that there is a widespread misunderstanding among recent Indian immigrants that if you are not a greencard holder, that if you are a H1 or J1 visa holder, reporting a crime will affect your visa status. "That is absolutely untrue. None of this ever goes into federal information system at all; this is a local issue and we encourage every resident to report any crime they witness," he said. Dr. Prasad said he has been encouraging the tenants to form an association, and also urging unit owners to work towards improving security measures in the complex. According to the residents the Durham Woods management, which was earlier not very receptive to complaints to improve lighting, install security cameras and employ security patrol has now hired off-duty police officers and two private security guards to patrol the complex.

They said the Mayor, however, has been very cooperative and in the last couple of weeks coordinated interactions between the Durham Woods management, the residents and the police. As of now, the Edison administration has stepped up community policing, increased police patrols, and has also stepped up neighborhood education and the neighborhood watch program, and training police officers about crime prevention, most of which are all ongoing programs.