PLEASANTVILLE – Getting guns off of the streets is Mayor Jesse Tweedle’s first step in combating a string of violent crimes that have occurred in the city in the past month.

After city officials, community leaders and law enforcement representatives gathered in Pleasantville Tuesday, Feb. 7 to draft a plan on how to better coordinate the various services used to reduce violent crimes in both Pleasantville and Atlantic City, Tweedle said he can’t wait for some of the initiatives to begin.

“We need to show a strong hand and show that we’re for real,” Tweedle said. He said he plans to have parole officers “strongly encourage” individuals who are out on parole on gun charges to come in for a meeting to learn more about the penalties that the city is planning on enforcing.

“Because New Jersey doesn’t manufacture guns, a gun charge can be waived up to the federal level, which means a 10-year sentence,” he said.

Such a meeting would also include an offering of positive resources for the paroled individuals.

“We will tell them we will help them get a job, or they can continue to do what they are doing,” Tweedle said. “But we will come down on them like a ton of bricks.”

Most of the individuals at the meeting are a part of the Stop the Violence Task Force, a group of 32 members from different sectors of the community including nonprofit entities, educational representatives, law enforcement and churches. The task force meets monthly.

Tuesday’s emergency meeting was the first meeting of a larger group – a Municipal Planning Board – called specifically to bring in additional experts like Wanda Moore, assistant attorney general and director of the Office of Community Justice.

Moore provided examples of how the attorney general’s office is actively involved in other cities that also experience higher violent crime rates.

She said the cities have partnered with colleges to help collect data and analyze the information. The Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Policy has agreed to begin working with Pleasantville and Atlantic City, she said, noting that valuable information and initiatives will “bubble up” from the collection of such a close analysis of the crime data.

Other ideas discussed included having additional social workers in schools through graduate students from local universities, church members spending time on street corners at night to talk to the residents, and offering additional support for job creation and social services.

Municipal Planning Board members left the meeting with an action plan, including the notification of parolees on the enforcement of stiffer penalties, televising the meetings so the public can have access to the discussions, and to collect crime mapping, victim profiles, and criminal profiles.

The next meeting is scheduled for Feb. 16.

Also in attendance were Atlantic City Mayor Lorenzo Langford and representatives from the Atlantic City Board of Education, Pleasantville Public Schools, Atlantic City and Pleasantville police departments, the Atlantic County Sheriff’s Office, Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office, Atlantic City and Pleasantville Housing Authorities, Pleasantville and Atlantic City Councils, AtlantiCare, the Mothers in Charge organization, the United Way, and Fellowship of Christ, Praise Tabernacle and Mt. Zion Baptist churches.