SOUTH JERSEY (KYW Newsradio) — The Woodlynne Police Department is disbanding as it’s down to just a few cops and will enter into an agreement with Camden County to provide policing.
The small town of Woodlynne, New Jersey is in quite an unsustainable situation. A useless police station, shoddy record keeping, and abysmal practices for storing evidence were all contributing factors in this decision.
Camden County Commissioner Director Lou Cappelli says starting September 1st, the Camden Metro PD will take over law enforcement for the town, home to roughly 3,000 residents.
“One of our priorities will be finding a location in Woodlynne to have a substation or a station,” he said.
There will be a short-term plan developed by next month. From there, Camden Police Chief Gabe Rodriguez says it’ll take a month or two to finalize a permanent coverage plan.
“We will, as the commissioner director shared, be bringing the same services we provide to our Camden City residents without any impact, and I want to repeat, without any impact to our current mission in Camden City,” he said.
Cappelli says this probably should’ve been done years ago, but better late than never.
“And what’s great about this is that the residents will be the winners,” he said. “The residents who, right now, really do not have adequate police protection, haven’t for some time, will get the benefit of having a police department that has been nationally recognized for its method of policing.”
Nothing aside from a few vehicles will be retained from Woodlynne police and all three police officers currently on staff have submitted applications for Camden metro. And Cappelli says three prospective officers in the academy now will likely do the same.