Newark’s mayoral race has become a street fight — literally.
Since Cory Booker’s decision to flee the Brick City for the US Senate, the four Democratic candidates campaigning for his old job — City Councilmen Ras Baraka, Anibal Ramos and Darrin Sharif and former state Assistant Attorney General Shavar Jeffries — have been accused of tearing down each others’ posters, barging into an opponent’s home and letting staffers brawl in the street.
The candidates and their campaigns amazingly acknowledge that the situation will probably worsen as the contest heats up before the May 13 special election.
“It’s par for the course in Newark politics,” said Sharif, a Central Ward city councilman. “I just hope there are no serious injuries.”
There have already been minor ones.
Baraka’s brother and campaign manager, Amiri Baraka Jr., was caught on videotape in a November altercation with Jeffries campaigners. Jeffries supporters were hanging up posters when a high-school security guard told them Jeffries was “the wrong guy” and they were “in the wrong neighborhood.”
Minutes later, a car carrying Baraka Jr. and other staffers arrived. A woman jumped out and confronted the group.
“She said to me, ‘You were ripping down our posters.’ I told her I wasn’t,” the Jeffries canvasser told The Post. “She was getting in my face . . . and then she hit me.”
A Jeffries staffer began videotaping the altercation after the alleged punch.
“This f—ing guy’s going to destroy our community and y’all helping him?” Baraka Jr. screams, before trying to block the camera.
The bruised Jeffries staffer didn’t file a police complaint, though cops were called.
“The [cops] were handshaking and hugging” Baraka Jr., the woman said. “Then they tried to search us.”
Amiri Baraka Jr. — he and his brother are the sons of the recently deceased firebrand New Jersey poet laureate — denied any violence and claimed he and his staffers were responding to Jeffries’ crew stealing campaign posters.
The bad blood between Jeffries — nephew of controversial City College professor Leonard Jeffries — and Baraka first began boiling in April, when Ras and Amiri Baraka Jr. showed up unannounced at 9 p.m. at Jeffries’ home.
“I invited them in,” recalled Jeffries’ wife, Tenagne Girma-Jeffries. “I offered them soup. They said no. I offered [Amiri Jr.] a drink because it was so awkward.”
“[Amiri Jr.] started arguing that I should get out of the race,” Shavar Jeffries said. “I told him I didn’t appreciate him coming to my house to tell me that. Then my wife came down to ask them to leave because it got a little loud at that point.”
Baraka Jr. complained the Jeffries’ camp is “trying to paint Ras as a thug. How’s he a thug? He’s a school principal.”
That reputation isn’t only based on what’s going on with the mayor’s race. Ras Baraka has written and filed letters in support of convicted gang lord Al-Tariq Gumbs, according to a recent report by the Newark Star-Ledger.
A Jeffries supporter, Melissa Grant, said she told Baraka she didn’t approve of his “ghetto tactics.” She said her water was turned off a day after their exchange and doesn’t believe it was a coincidence. “I’ve lived in this house nine years. I always pay on time, and I’ve never had my water shut off until then,” she said.
But Baraka Jr. maintains it is the other campaigns engaged in dirty tacticsm, accusing Sharif and Ramos campaigners of defacing or removing campaign stickers and signs.
“We have a video of a guy in a van with Ramos poster getting on top of the van and taking down one of our banners,” he said. “In the North Ward [which Ramos represents], a poster won’t stay up.”
Ramos’ campaign manager Carlos Valentin Jr. acknowledged the incident happened but said it didn’t involve a campaign worker. Luis Quintana, the city’s former council president, will serve as interim mayor until May.
The big loser in all of this — as so often — is Newark itself. Despite the Democratic hype surrounding Booker’s term, he leaves behind a city with 15% unemployment and a violent crime rate nearly three times the national average.
The position of mayor, meanwhile, has traditionally been less about serving voters than serving himself. Do the candidates care passionately about Newark, or passionately about occupying the same chair once held by Sharpe James — convicted of fraud for rigging the sale of city land for the enrichment of himself and his girlfriend?
These guys have proved they can brawl. But can they fight to save a city?
The candidates
Ras BarakaPhoto: AP
Ras Baraka, 43
Democrat, South Ward City Council member and high school principal
Baraka and his brother Amiri Baraka Jr. allegedly barged into rival Shavar Jeffries’ home in an attempt to bully the South Ward rival out of the race.
A Jeffries’ staffer also accused a Baraka employee of clocking her in the face while she was campaigning — an ensuing argument was captured on video. Baraka’s father is the late firebrand poet Amiri Baraka.
Anibal RamosPhoto: Facebook
Anibal Ramos, 38
Democrat, North Ward City Council member
A Ramos supporter tore down a Baraka banner — which was captured on a YouTube video — and campaign staffers allegedly have been posting copies of Amiri Baraka’s controversial 9/11 poem, “Somebody Blew Up America” around town.
Shavar Jeffries
Shavar Jeffries, 38
Democrat, former New Jersey assistant attorney general
Jeffries’ campaign allegedly tore down Baraka’s campaign signs, cut out the faces and left the remnants in vacant lots.
Jeffries is the nephew of controversial City College professor Leonard Jeffries, who infamously referred to whites as “ice people” and accused Jews of financing the slave trade.
Darrin Sharif
Darrin Sharif, 42
Democrat, Central Ward City Council member and operations director for the Essex County Urban League
Campaign operatives placed Sharif stickers over those of Baraka, according to campaign manager Amiri Baraka Jr.
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