ASBURY PARK — A public comment period at Wednesday night's City Council meeting turned into a sharp exchange. A speaker from the advocacy group Help Not Handcuffs demanded that the city say whether it would seek criminal charges against two police officers. The attorney answering for the city told him that council members would not respond because he had threatened the city with legal action.

The speaker, who identified himself as Randy Thompson of Springwood Avenue, told the council it was the fifth meeting at which he had raised the matter. He accused two officers of encouraging a woman to confront him in Springwood Park and then joking about it on body-camera video. He asked whether the city would press charges. The officers have not been charged with any crime, and the allegations have not been tested in any proceeding. The Tide is not naming the officers.

"That's a yes or no question," he said.

A city official the speaker addressed as the city attorney answered instead. The official told him that council members "are not criminal defendants" and that he did not "run the government."

The official said the speaker had threatened the city with legal action over the same allegations he was raising. "My recommendation to them is not to answer questions," the official said, according to a transcript of the meeting. The official added that when litigation is involved, the city's attorneys speak for it.

The speaker called the response "a non-answer." The council then closed public comment. No council member addressed the allegations.

Report on Black residents

The speaker also cited what he described as a new Help Not Handcuffs report. He said it uses U.S. Census figures to show that about one in four Black residents have left Asbury Park in the past 10 years. He said Black residents went from the city's largest group to a minority over that time, and that the Hispanic population also shrank. He said people on the city's west side point to policing and gentrification as the reasons.

He also said he had been told that several officers are suing the Police Department over alleged discrimination. The Tide has not independently reviewed the report or confirmed those lawsuits.

Earlier in the meeting, a city official said the city had started a practice a few months ago of researching questions raised in public comment and reporting back. "I don't want people to think or have a misconception that they are being ignored," the official said. As an example, the city manager said the city has added stop signs and arranged for police coverage on weekday afternoons at a broken traffic signal near Grand and Asbury avenues after a resident raised safety concerns. The manager said the signal is blinking because repair parts are in short supply.

In other business, the council approved payment of bills and a change order for an emergency air-handler replacement at the city's wastewater treatment plant. It also readopted an ordinance vacating part of a street under the waterfront redevelopment plan.