Sign Up For Our Newsletter

Cory Booker: Newark mayor, Rhodes scholar, crime fighter

Not only is Alliance board member Cory Booker a champion of school choice, nobody–nobody—messes with his town. 

Mayor Booker and his guards left Newark’s City Hall around 12:30 p.m. yesterday for a meeting and stumbled upon what appeared to be a confrontation across the street: a police officer and a man in a standoff on Broad Street. The officer held a gun and the man wielded a pair of scissors.

The police later said that the man had just robbed a customer in the City National Bank of hundreds of dollars. In escaping the bank, the man was brushed by a car and fell.

When a nearby police officer went to help him, the man tried to stab the officer with the scissors, but missed, Mr. Booker said. The officer drew his gun as the suspect was running away.

Mr. Booker, 37, who played tight end on Stanford University’s football team, said, “I took off my jacket and gave chase.”

The two officers with him, Billy Valentin and Kendrick Isaac, began running, too.

The guards overtook Mr. Booker and took the man down in front of a parking lot.

Mr. Valentin, 37, a 12-year veteran of the force, said, “He actually didn’t see it coming because he was looking at the officer with the gun, and we came from behind.’’

When Mr. Booker reached the group, he began shouting at the robber: “Not in our city anymore! These days are over!”

And if you think that was good, just wait until he gets to work on school reform.