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[soft tense music] From NJ PBS, this is "NJ Spotlight News" with Briana Vannozzi.

- Good evening and thanks for joining us this Wednesday night, I'm Brianna Vannozzi.

The family of a murdered Sayreville Councilwoman is speaking out for the first time since her death.

Nearly two months after 30 year old Eunice Dwumfour was fatally shot inside her car, her loved ones are asking for help and justice in the case.

Melissa Rose Cooper reports.

- I need justice for my daughter.

Please, God help me.

Thank you.

- [Melissa] Mary Dwumfour no longer able to hold back the tears from her eyes as she pleas for help in finding the person responsible for killing her daughter, Sayreville Councilwoman Eunice Dwumfour.

The 30 year old's life was cut short after she was gunned down in front of her home almost two months ago, leaving behind a husband and 12 year old daughter.

- I think of so many things.

Being just there for me anytime I wish to call her phone.

Even after her death, I wanted to pick up my phone.

I was like, "Oh, let me call my wife and talk to her."

But she's not there to listen to me.

- Our daughter death has caused a lot in our life, especially my wife, my in-law, the little, my granddaughter, brothers and sisters, and the whole entire families.

- [Melissa] This is the first time members of her family are speaking publicly since her death, and nearly two months later, they're no closer to finding out who was responsible for taking their daughter, mother, and wife away from them.

- We know that there is someone out there who knows what they've done in taking a sister away from her brother, a daughter away from her parents, and most tragically, a mother away from her daughter.

- [Melissa] Attorney and former assemblyman, John Wisniewski, is now representing the family.

Their pastor says they met with authorities earlier this month, but we're left with more questions than answers.

- Rather have questions for them as to, hey, what's up?

It's been a month now.

We don't know what's going on.

Our parents have been kept in the dark.

And that's when they said, "Well, we investigated, "and we can't share much information with you."

- Dwumfour's loved one say that she was a kind person who was friendly to everyone, so they just can't imagine who would've wanted to hurt her.

- As you could imagine in any investigation, investigators do not share the details of what they're looking at or why they're looking at it or even if they have any solid leads because that may, in some respect, impair their ability to continue the investigation.

And the family respects that.

But by the same token, now well over a month since Eunice was taken from them, there is no idea that they're aware of as to who wanted to see her dead, what motive they may have had, and I think the frustration for the family is that, in the absence of there being anything specific, there now becomes the speculation.

- [Melissa] But the one thing her family does know, she will never be forgotten.

- We have a lot, a lot, a lot of memories.

Just imagine your wife, you know, stay together.

Lay in the same together, smile together, wake up.

"Oh, how you doing?"

You know?

[husband sighs] We pray for justice.

That's all I'm praying for.

- [Melissa] And it's that faith Dwumfour's loved ones are trusting will finally bring the justice they believe is needed.

For "NJ Spotlight News," I'm Melissa Rose Cooper.

- Well, when it passed in 2014, bail reform was among New Jersey's bipartisan crowning achievements.

Now the policy has become a political football of sorts, with elected leaders from both parties pointing to it as either the cause or solution to rising crime in the state.

Former governor Chris Christie and a panel of experts Tuesday night defended his administration's overhaul of the bail system and attempts to roll it back.

Senior political correspondent David Cruz reports.

- I'm proud that we work together to do it the right way, and I think that's what you're gonna hear about tonight is that New Jersey has done this the right way and is serving as a model for those who want to do this the right way, not the political way.

- [David] Former governor Chris Christie will remind you that he's the Republican governor who ushered bail reform through a democratic legislature almost a decade ago.

At a panel discussion on bail reform at the Christie Institute for Public Policy at Seton Hall, he lined up some of the people who were closest to him back then for a discussion of how the state came to the reforms and the challenges they face today.

- I looked back and the one statistic that struck me in 2012 was 1500 people were in jail in 2012 on $2,500 or less of bail.

2,500.

Bail reform comes, and by 2021, the number is four.

Four people.

- [David] The panel, which included former Christie administration officials like Jeff Chiesa and Chris Perino, as well as public defender Joseph Corcoran and others addressed concerns over an uptick in crime, particularly car thefts, coinciding with pandemic restrictions that has many elected officials from both parties starting to call for reform to the reform.

- What immediately happens is, well, what happened?

What changed, other than the pandemic, what changed since then?

Well, it's bail reform.

And so immediately it's, well, bail reform must be the problem.

It's not the problem.

- I hope that the power brokers of the world, legislators understand that there really is no correlation between the uptick in crime and the Criminal Justice Reform Act.

The rate of recidivism has not gone up.

The rate of people not showing it court has not gone up, and it would really be a shame if we were to disrupt what undoubtedly is the best and fairest pre-trial release system in the country.

- [David] Republican State Senator Mike Testa is one who's pushed for bills to toughen pretrial detention and impose mandatory sentencing for car thefts.

He's pointed to bail reform as part of the reason for an uptick in crime.

Even as more recent statistics show a reversal of those numbers.

- I was happy to hear that they admitted that the system is not perfect, but it's far better than it used to be.

And I still think that there's some kinks that can be worked out in the system.

And you know, I'm willing to work in a bipartisan manner and with some guidance from Governor Christie.

- I understand we're in an election here here in the state, and the whole legislature is up, and people are gonna try to play politics.

My only point is like, you know, I'm sure there are changes that can be made, small ones to make it better, but the results speak for themselves.

Let's just not do something for short term political gain that will wind up really injuring people, the state in a big way.

- You pull on one thread, it all starts to move.

And I would say, there are ways to make tweaks if tweaks need to be made.

The most recent data on car thefts, actually, suggest that the numbers are going down again.

So before everybody gets so excited, we gotta upend this incredible national model of reform because car thefts are up?

Let's take a look at the numbers.

- [David] But election season is election season, and in New Jersey, the fog of poll data and politics can color the judgment, and make even seemingly positive reforms ripe for deconstruction, for better or for worse.

I'm David Cruz, "NJ Spotlight News."

- Combating crime has been a reoccurring concern from residents attending town hall meetings with us attorney Phillips 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.

US attorney for New Jersey Phillip Sellinger joins me now to discuss.

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.

- And what are you hearing from residents by and large?

- Well, we're hearing about two principal issues.

People are generally very concerned about violent crime, and they're 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 paces alleging police misconduct.

- Let me ask you then, US 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 Seabrooks, 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 what it would take for one to happen?

- Of course, we are very saddened by the tragic death of Mr. Seabrooks.

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.

We are aware of the demands for investigations by the Department of Justice, and 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?

- No, 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 inability of a department to effectively police constitutionally, those are the sort of cases that the department looks at very, very seriously for potential pattern and 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.

To what extent do you see a need for federal oversight there?

Can you say?

- Well, what I can tell you is my office has 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 eight convictions, including a sergeant who operated a rogue squad called the Robbery Squad that targeted Patterson residence, 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.

- We know hate crimes are on the rise.

What can the DOJ do then to prevent them from happening in the first place?

- Well, the DOJ is very active on several fronts.

Number one is that 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 'cause the more reporting there is, the more that we can help deter such crimes in advance.

And 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.

- US attorney for New Jersey, Phillip Sellinger, thanks so much for sharing your time with us tonight.

- Thank you, Briana.

- It's been more than 10 years since Super Storm Sandy, but shore communities are still in a race to protect their homes and neighborhoods from another catastrophic weather event.

As experts say extreme storms will return and with more intensity and frequency.

Well, this week federal leaders gathered in Union Beach, one of the hardest hit towns in the state, to kick off the first phase of a long awaited flood control project as part of our ongoing series Peril and Promise that examines the human impact of climate change.

Senior correspondent Brenda Flanagan reports local say it can't start soon enough.

- The Flood protection project for Union Beach is not something that we have ever stopped talking about.

- [Brenda] Mayor Charles Cocuzza noted residents in this vulnerable Bayside community have waited 28 years for construction to begin on new waterfront barriers.

Protection many town officials believe could have helped deflect a devastating surge from Super Storm Sandy that flooded 80% of Union Beach a decade ago.

- In town after town all along the shore, we realized that pre-and Army Corps beach projects made an enormous difference.

Where dune projects and coastal buffers held, the damage was severe, but it was manageable.

Where beach towns were left exposed, the damage was catastrophic.

- When Sandy came along, it became very evident that these Army Corps projects were needed, and they were needed, you know, might even be more needed because the climate change and all the other effects with sea level rise.

- [Brenda] The Army Corps of Engineers blueprint for shielding Union beach from devastating ocean storms doesn't differ much from plans developed in 1995, but project funding stalled until Sandy hit, and political headwind shifted.

The 50 million phase one features a beach berm, planted dunes, and jetties with completion scheduled for November.

Future phases include floodgates and pump stations.

The Army Corps of Engineers calls it a race against time.

- We know that extreme weather will not only return, but it's likely to return with even more force than you experience in Hurricane Sandy.

- [Brenda] New Jersey's BEP fronted a loan so Union Beach and Monmouth County could pay their 35% share of project costs.

Meanwhile, another flood control project in Middlesex borough just last week finally got full federal funding, about $500 million to control rain and riverine flooding in the Green Brook basin.

Over decades, storms like Irene and Floyd and Ida have caused such misery here, says Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, who credits funding to a visit by President Biden after Ida.

- I don't think any of this would've happened if the president hadn't joined us in the area and he got to see for himself the devastation.

- [Brenda] The flood controls do work.

Bound Brook borough where the Army Corps completed walls, gates, and a pumping station in 2016 escaped damage during Ida.

But other towns, especially Manville, are still clamoring for protection.

And while the Union Beach Project was long and coming, so much of New Jersey's coast remains perilously unshielded against future storms.

- New Jersey is ground zero for some of the worst impacts of climate change.

We have a greater risk of sea level rise two times greater here in New Jersey than most other places on the planet.

- [Brenda] A controversial $52 billion proposal to protect 41 miles along the New York New Jersey harbor with surge barriers that could cut through some neighborhoods is in an initial public comment period, and a $16 billion project to build flood walls along jersey's back bays wouldn't even start until 2030 at the earliest.

Democrat Watson Coleman says it needs support from both sides of the aisle.

- Their constituents are as impacted as vulnerable as anybody else, and that we needed to look and work collectively and in a bipartisan fashion here.

- [Brenda] But some towns fear sea levels could end up rising faster than federal funding.

I'm Brenda Flanagan, "NJ Spotlight News."

[soft music] - Workers at three Starbucks locations in New Jersey joined more than a hundred other stores across the country in a one day strike this morning.

The work stoppage comes a day ahead of the company's annual shareholders meeting, and as the company's new CEO takes the helm, union members are protesting the company's alleged anti-union activity, which the company denies.

Workers at the Hopewell Starbucks Cafe, that was the first in New Jersey to unionize, say they're hoping the strike will help them get a second bargaining session with the company.

Employees at the Hamilton and Montclair Starbucks locations also striked today.

Well, as expected, the Federal Reserve today raised interest rates by another quarter percent, pushing ahead with an aggressive plan to tame inflation.

That's despite the turmoil following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

Instead, the Fed insisted the US banking system is quote, sound and resilient.

The Fed also saying interest rates will be hiked just one more time in 2023 before the Central bank ends the inflation battle, and released economic projections, which didn't change much from a previous outlook released in December, predicting higher unemployment and slower economic growth this year.

US stocks traded higher on the rate hike news, but here's a look at how the markets closed today.

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[tense music] - A sacred piece of indigenous land in northern New Jersey is now back in the hands of indigenous people.

The area known as Split Rock Mountain was officially transferred this week to the Ramapo Lenape who long used it as an ancestral site.

As Ted Goldberg reports, it's a landmark movement that was centuries in the making.

- [Ted] After nearly 300 years, the Ramapo people have regained the land around Split Rock Mountain.

The 54 acres across New Jersey and New York are sacred to the Ramapo, and have suffered from years of neglect.

- The elders went into the mountain forest and prayed, and we would say, well, what are they doing?

They would say Indian stuff.

That meant mind your own business and be quiet.

Later on in the late fifties, they started burning crosses up there.

Which you to probably no doubt easily see for 30 or 40 miles.

- There's beer bottles and you know, stuff like that.

They're desecrating this sacred site.

- [Ted] It's a big change of pace for the Ramapo who have fought elsewhere to defend their ability to use their land.

- Condemnation, zoning, taxes.

I mean, it's really, we just had settled a court battle with the town of Mahwah because they said we couldn't have over two people praying on our property.

- [Ted] The Land Conservancy of New Jersey raised more than $300,000 from private donors to buy the land from the Rockland County Sewer District.

Afterwards, they donated it to the Ramapo who previously owned parts of the land, but not all of it.

- So many years we're losing property.

This is one property that we can't afford to lose because it is so sacred to Native Americans.

- I look down on metropolitan New York right up to the base of the mountain and thinking, how fortunate this was saved from development so far.

How could we preserve it?

- [Ted] David Johnson is an archeologist who studies native cultures around the world.

- You should be seeing a turtle effigy.

All right, I will point it out for you.

- [Ted] He says, the Ramapo revere Split Rock Mountain, and he's glad this land is back under their control.

- It's important to help preserve some of the cultural heritage of the Native Americans who lived here, what, 10, 12, 14 or more thousand years before the first Europeans arrived.

- Split Rock Mountain is more than just a holy sight for the Ramapo people.

It's also a historical one.

They say this land played a huge role in America gaining its independence more than 200 years ago - Without the Ramapo, literally there'd be no United States of America.

Without allowing to British to use of Ramapo Pass, the only way that they could reinforce their troops was off Atlantic or marching down from Canada.

By us, my elders, allowing George Washington to place 5,000 French troops in the Ramapo Pass, it totally eliminated any strategic advantage and/or surprise.

- [Ted] The next issue for the Ramapo is familiar to anybody who lives in New Jersey, high property taxes.

Under their current setup, they could owe up to $85,000 per year.

- It's unfair, it's unreasonable, and we're calling on early elected officials here today to please work with the Land Alliance to make sure that these property taxes are reduced.

- [Ted] Leaders at the ceremony say they'll work with the Ramapo and figure out a solution.

At Split Rock Mountain, I'm Ted Goldberg, "NJ Spotlight News."

- Well, Governor Murphy's got a new office space tonight.

The $300 million State House renovation is finally complete.

Just six years after starting, cameras got a glimpse of the work today, which had the exterior of the 231 year old building on State Street in Trenton, hidden behind scaffolding until about now.

Skylights in the rotunda were restored to functional use.

Other cosmetic upgrades were made, like getting rid of cracked paint and deteriorating walls.

The section of the building that dates back to the 1700s is now no longer considered a fire trap.

That's good news.

The entire State house getting modern sprinkler and fire alarm systems, new heating and air conditioning, and internal fire escape stairwells.

The plan was controversial at the time, signed by Governor Christie.

A lawsuit was filed to block the plan, but this week, Governor Murphy and staffers are moving back in.

And as the second oldest continuous state capitol in the US, we'll say she cleaned up pretty well.

And that's all we have for you tonight.

But a reminder, you can now listen to "NJ Spotlight News" anytime via podcast wherever you stream.

So make sure to download it and check us out.

You can also follow us on our social platforms and on njspotlightnews.org to keep up with all the latest news on the Garden state.

And for everyone celebrating, we wish you a happy Ramadan.

I'm Briana Vannozzi.

For the entire "NJ Spotlight News" team, thanks for being with us this evening.

We'll see you back here tomorrow.

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