Atlantic City: In wake of fatal carjackings, police to patrol parking garages

Atlantic County prosecutor's directive returns Atlantic City police patrols to casino parking garages
By LYNDA COHEN, Staff Writer
pressofAtlanticCity.com

ATLANTIC CITY - Patrols of the casinos' parking garages will resume at 4 p.m. today, less than 24 hours after the mayor ordered them halted.

The patrols were instituted 10 days ago in response to a fatal carjacking that began inside the Trump Taj Mahal's garage.

At Wednesday's City Council meeting, an executive order signed by Mayor Lorenzo Langford was read, ordering the patrols to cease. Langford was not at the meeting.

However, Atlantic County Prosecutor Ted Housel issued a prosecutorial directive today declaring the mayor's order null and void effective immediately.

"My position is that it was null and void the moment it was signed, therefore (Deputy Chief Ernest Jubilee) did not have to follow it," Housel said.

But Jubilee had followed the order, "because it was an executive order from the mayor," he said today.

Now that the prosecutor has weighed in, however, those patrols will resume beginning with the 4 p.m. to midnight shift, he said.

Housel said the agreement reached years ago when casinos first came to the city clearly laid out the duties of the various agencies. That states the police department is the investigative authority for the parking garages and the casinos' hotels. State Police oversee the casino floors.

"That was never rescinded," Housel said.

He also pointed out that the bill creating the Tourism District speaks of a concensus in policing.

"You don't violate a concensus by an executive fiat," Housel said.