Mel Evans / AP

Police are seen in a downtown shopping area in Camden, N.J.

One of the most dangerous cities in the U.S. is getting rid of its police department.

Amid what they call a “public safety crisis,” officials in Camden, N.J., plan to disband the city's 141-year-old police department and replace it with a non-union division of the Camden County Police.

Camden city officials have touted the move as necessary to combat the city’s growing financial and safety problems. The entire 267-member police department will be laid off and replaced with a newly reformatted metro division, which is projected to have some 400 members. It will serve only the city of Camden starting in early 2013.

“It’s not a money-saver, it’s living within the budget you’ve got to get more boots on the ground,” Camden County spokesperson Joyce Gabriel told NBC News. “There has been an uptick in violence this year, and the city decided to go with the county’s police department.”

Camden isn’t the first cash-strapped city to be faced with the decision to eliminate or merge its police department.

Bernard Melekian, director of the Justice Department’s Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) office, told NBC News that as communities around the country recover from the recession, police mergers are part of a new reality that will likely continue through the next decade.

San Bernardino, Calif., files for bankruptcy with over $1 billion in debts

“This really reflects a much broader issue, which is that the economy is changing the delivery of police services profoundly,” Melekian said, “and those agencies undergoing regionalization and consolidation – in particular, smaller ones that are financially distressed – are going to have to find another way of delivering those core services.”

'Recipe for disaster'
Given Camden’s exceptionally high rate of violence (the city recorded this year’s 41st homicide earlier this month), city police officers in danger being laid off say the transition is risky at best.

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“We’re concerned, we’re definitely concerned,” Camden Fraternal Order of Police President John Williamson told NBC News. “You’re going to create a police department and staff it with people who are unfamiliar with the city and say, ‘Go ahead and fight crime.’ That’s a recipe for disaster.”

Afflicted by homelessness, drug trafficking, prostitution, robbery and violence, Camden has consistently ranked high among the top 10 most dangerous cities in the U.S. since 1998, according to Morgan Quitno Press, a research firm that compiles statistical data on cities. In 2010, Camden had the highest crime rate in the U.S., with 2,333 violent crimes per 100,000 people, more than five times the national average.

Camden Mayor Dana Redd underscored the importance of the new, regionalized police force in her proposal for the next fiscal year’s budget.

“The senseless acts of violence occurring in our city affect every one of us,” Redd said in a statement. “We need to assure our residents that all life matters and that we are serious about making our city safe by expanding the number of boots on the ground. This decision to move towards a Camden Metro Division is being made solely on what is right for our residents – nothing more, nothing less.”

Layoffs of the city’s police force will begin by the end of the month, according to the mayor’s office. County officials said that at most 49 percent of the city’s police officers, based on an application process, will be transferred to the new county division under the plan.

Gabriel said the terms of contract for current officers of the city's police department, which include longevity bonuses, day-shift differentials and other costs, make it too expensive to transfer all of them to the new force, so the rest of the Metro Division will be staffed by new hires. Louis Cappelli Jr., director of the Camden County Board of Freeholders, told NBC News that more than 1,500 people from various states and police backgrounds have already applied for the county positions.

The new division, to be fully funded by the city of Camden and the state of New Jersey, will begin field training on the streets as early as October for a period of 17 to 19 weeks.

But no matter how long the training, Rockefeller Institute Director Thomas Gais told NBC News that consolidating into one system and increasing cost-effectiveness takes time.  

“It’s going to be a disruption at least for a while before some kind of consolidation happens, before the reorganization begins to work as intended,” Gais said. “There’s a tradeoff generally in the responsiveness to local needs and efficiency in reallocating resources, so the question becomes whether the reorganization reduces the quality of service and whether the short-term risk is worthwhile in the long run.”

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Gabriel said that cities within Camden County have the option to cede their municipal police force to a county department.

Saving money
Union officials argue that Camden's move is a way for the city to get out of collective bargaining with police. The county's new metro division officers will be non-union members.

The police department in Camden has been under state control since 2005, when then-mayor Gwendolyn Faison called for the takeover. The agreement is set to expire at the end of the year, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has thrown his support behind the transition to county control.

“A county police force that has a reasonable contract and that’s going to provide a huge increase in the number of police officers on the streets here in Camden is a win for everybody,” Christie said at a recent event at Rutgers-Camden University. “I’m willing to put my name on the line for this concept.”

Other state officials have backed similar initiatives.

A 2011 report by the Major Cities Police Chiefs Association, a group representing the nation’s 63 largest police forces, found that 70 percent were consolidating some law enforcement functions to compensate for recent budget cuts.

• Faced with mounting costs and declining revenue, the city of Midvale, Utah, was forced to merge four local police agencies with the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Department.  
• In Pennsylvania, the state police are increasingly taking on more patrol duties following the recent closures of municipal departments. Since 2010, at least 33 cities scattered throughout the state have closed or scaled back their agencies, according to state records.
• Police agencies in Oakland and Detroit have raised concerns about their ability to respond to routine resident burglaries, theft, and public nuisance calls because they were stretched too thin providing support for other agencies. 

“We’re seeing the economy do a lot of different things to the agencies, which are looking at various forms of consolidation, all of which is driven by the economy,” Melekian said, adding that he knows of at least 100 police agencies around the country undergoing some form of service consolidation.

Cities that have made the switch from municipal to county or regional forces have reported saving millions of dollars and passing grades on the street, but Melekian said a shakeup of the current system in Camden won't eradicate crime or solve budgetary woes.

“The consensus seems to be that this saves money, but it does not produce instantaneous savings,” Melekian said. “There are too many issues that need to be resolved, too many expenses, so at some point they’ll have to work through these inefficiencies before they get the results they want.”

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Could you be blamed for a car crash because you sent a text message? 

A New Jersey judge will decide later this week if the sender of a text message might be partially liable for a horrific auto accident that occurred because the driver was reading that message on his cell phone and drifted into oncoming traffic.

With nearly half a million U.S. drivers injured in distracted driving-related accidents every year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the judge’s decision could have wide-ranging impact in both the legal and digital realms.

While it might seem absurd to blame someone who isn't even in the car -- or anywhere near it -- for causing an accident, some legal experts say the plaintiff is on firmer ground than you might think.

Skippy Weinstein, a Morristown-based lawyer, is using similar logic to press the case he filed on behalf of David and Linda Kuber. Both Kubers lost their legs during a 2009 crash in Mine Hill, N.J., after 19-year-old Kyle Best sideswiped their car when driving while texting. Weinstein said Shannon Colonna, who was texting with Best, should also be held responsible for the Kubers’ injuries.

"She was not physically in the vehicle but she was electronically present," Weinstein told msnbc.com. "She and he were assisting each other in a violation of the law."

That word "assisting" is at the crux of Weinstein's novel legal argument. 

Most readers will be familiar with the notion of "aiding and abetting" a criminal act and the guilt it brings: the man who knowingly holds the door for the gang is just likely to be convicted of bank robbery as the safe cracker.

More recently, this notion of aiding and abetting has been extended to civil liability cases, too, creating a basis for what's sometimes called "secondary" or "vicarious" liability. For the past two decades, most civil aiding and abetting cases have been limited to investment and securities fraud: An aggrieved investor might not only sue Bernie Madoff for stealing his money, for example, but also go after a third-party broker who repeatedly executed trades for Madoff. Even if the trader wasn't profiting from the scheme or part of a "joint enterprise,“ a court might find the trader provided assistance to Madoff, and should have known that someone was likely be injured by his actions.

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The aiding and abetting argument in injuries that give rise to lawsuits, known as "torts," is only beginning to find its way into other kinds of civil cases.

There's a simple three-pronged test to prove someone is partly to blame for causing an injury by aiding and abetting someone else. It is set out in the Restatement of Torts published by the American Law Institute, which guides most civil courtrooms:

1) The party the defendant assists must do a wrongful act;

2) The party must be generally aware of his or her role in the illegal or "tortuous" act;

3) The party must "substantially assist" in the principal violation.

Weinstein think his argument is easy to make. The driver violated the law by texting while driving. Colonna, the text sender, should have known that Best was driving home from work and had to know texting while driving was a violation, he said. Therefore, it's hard to argue that a text sender isn't substantially assisting in the creation of a text message conversation that violates New Jersey's driving laws.

"That very comfortably satisfies the third prong of the legal test," he said.

Colonna’s lawyer, Joseph McGlone, doesn't think the argument has any merit, and has asked Morris County Superior Court Judge David Rand to dismiss the case. Rand is scheduled to rule this week on McGlone’s motion to dismiss the case.

The sender of a text message has no way to control or predict when the recipient will read it, McGlone argues.

"The sender of the text has the right to assume the recipient will read it at a safe time,” McGlone told the local Daily Record  newspaper. “It’s not fair. It’s not reasonable. Shannon Colonna has no way to control when Kyle Best is going to read that message."

He added that there is no precedent for heaping liability on a person on the other side of a text message conversation that causes injury.

Of course, there's no precedent for a lot of legal areas in the Digital Age. In situations like this, judges usually turn to analogies. In driving injury cases, the judge has a bushel full to choose from.

For starters, it's hard to tag liability on anyone who isn't holding the steering wheel of the car while an accident occurs. Lawyers around the nation have repeatedly tried and failed to make passengers partly responsible for accidents caused by drunken drivers when passengers knowingly get into a car with an intoxicated driver.

There are exceptions, however. A South Carolina court has said a passenger could be judged a "proximate cause" of an injury if the driver and passenger were in some kind of "joint enterprise," such as the passenger steering the car while the driver presses the gas pedal.

Passengers who have directly encouraged drivers to break the law -- by urging them to speed excessively or to drive in the oncoming lane as part of a game, for example -- have also been found liable, Weinstein says.

But to find a passenger liable, the South Carolina court said, "The passenger must have an equal right to control the direction and management of the vehicle." It seems hard to argue that a text message sender has equal ability to control the vehicle as the driver does.

But there are plenty of other situations where someone other than the driver has to pay after an injury accident, an extension of liability called “imputed negligence.” The most common is when the driver is "an agent" of someone else -- when a pizza delivery man driving for work causes an accident, his employer is liable.  Parents are often liable for accidents their children cause if they kids are directly under their care. 

There's also concept called "negligent entrustment": if you knowingly let an unlicensed driver take your auto out for a spin, you will probably be liable for an accident he or she causes. 

Neither of those cases fit this situation well, however. So Weinstein has settled on a simpler analogy.

"If she was in the vehicle and put her hands over his eyes so he couldn't see, she would be liable," he said. "(Texting with him) is as if she put her hands over his eyes."

Is texting the digital equivalent of willfully rendering someone blind? To even make that argument, and to press on with the aiding and abetting claim, Weinstein has to persuade the judge that Colonna knew that Best was texting while driving. Colonna's lawyers are contesting that point, but Weinstein says the pattern of texts between boyfriend and girlfriend make clear that she must have known he was on his way home from work.

But even if he fails on that argument, it's easy to imagine other lawsuits where evidence of knowledge by the sender could be hard to deny. A driver might directly text, "Hey, I'm driving home," for example.

That would make a big difference in a case like this, said Robert Mitchell, a Utah-based lawyer and author of a recent article on aiding and abetting claims.

"If there is conclusive evidence that the person sending the text messages to the driver knew the driver was texting while driving, we see no reason why a claim for aiding and abetting the driver’s negligent or reckless conduct could not be made. The case is probably weaker if there is no evidence of actual knowledge, but only evidence of ‘constructive knowledge,’" said Mitchell, referring to a concept that the sender "should have known" the recipient was driving. "Courts disagree over whether constructive knowledge is sufficient to give rise to aiding and abetting liability."

Courts have found that the contribution by this third party in aiding and abetting cases can't be slight – it must be “significant.” For example, giving directions to the bank robber probably wouldn’t be substantial enough to get you prosecuted, but telling him what time security guard shifts change could be. And, as with most civil liability cases, the harm caused by the action doesn't have to be intentional.

Mitchell said this is the critical phrase in the American Law Institute's guidelines.

"If the encouragement or assistance is a substantial factor in causing the resulting tort, the one giving it is himself a tortfeasor and is responsible for the consequences of the other’s act. This is true both when the act done is (intentional) and when it is merely (negligent)," Mitchell wrote in his review, quoting the guidelines with added parenthesis. In fact, liability exists even if the third-party has no idea he or she is doing something illegal or negligent.

So in Mitchell’s view, it's a relatively easy to argue that the texter "substantially assisted" the driver in causing the accident. 

"The third prong, substantial assistance, would be an easier hurdle to clear (than knowledge) since sending somebody a text message while driving distracts the driver and that distraction may ultimately cause the accident," he said.  "Of course defenses may include superseding or intervening causes to the underlying tort (the first prong), like bad weather, poor road conditions or visibility, avoiding someone or something on the road."

Not all experts agree, however. Maryland-based lawyer Bradley Shear, an expert in digital law, openly fretted about how far liability might extend if Weinstein is successful in his novel legal argument.

"What if someone is hopping on a boat, and they look down at a text, slip and drown? What if a doctor gets a text before a surgery that upsets him and he makes a mistake? Is the sender responsible?" he said. "If you start going down that route where are you going to draw the line?"

Mark Rasch, for head of the Justice Department’s Computer Crimes Unit, said he thinks the case will boil down simply into this question: Can anyone really prove that the sender of the text, Colonna, knew that Best would read it while driving? Absent such proof, there is no case, he says.

But he was concerned with the larger issue of extending liability through digital means.

“The real question here is, do we as a society want to impose a duty on the non-driving texter for accidents that happen when a recipient is driving?” he said. “For now, it seems a reasonable place to draw the line at this: The person driving has a duty not to text. And the person on other end of line has no duty unless there are special circumstances.”

One special circumstance he envisioned: A boss or other person in a position of power who received a message from an employee saying, “I can’t text, I’m driving,” but continued to send demanding texts with an implied threat if they weren’t answered quickly.

“The person in the position of authority might have liability then,” said Rasch, now a cybersecurity consultant with Virginia-based CSC Inc.

Complicating matters, juries can apportion liability, and theoretically could find a driver 90 percent responsible and the sender of a text 10 percent responsible. Damages can be similarly apportioned, although the realities of collections means the party with the deepest pockets usually pays the most in damages.

It’s also possible that Congress or state legislatures might create a chain of liability, as states have done with dram shop laws, which make bars liable for injuries and damages caused by patron who are served after they’re drunk.

For his part, Weinstein demurs when asked if he's trying to set an important legal precedent or make law. He's just trying to win a case for his client, he said.

"The defense ... wants to make this into a cause celebre, but this is not complicated," he said. "A jury may find I'm wrong and thrown me out on my duff. ... All I'm saying is don't (text) while driving, and don't assist someone else in texting while driving."

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New Jersey Governor's Office

N.J. Gov. Chris Christie with Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno in November 2011. Despite Guadagno's involvement in a criminal investigation of pension abuse, Christie has not appointed a special prosecutor.

By Mark Lagerkvist
New Jersey Watchdog

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — a rising star in the national Republican Party — called an overhaul of the state pension system his "biggest governmental victory." He now faces embarrassment from flaws his reforms failed to fix.

The sweeping new laws increase contributions from public workers, decrease benefits and halt cost-of-living hikes. According to Christie, the changes should save the state $120 billion over the next 30 years.

But his reform did little to stop the age-old New Jersey practice of double-dipping, in which employees "retire," start collecting a pension, and then are rehired, often the next day. Christie's own deputy chief of staff collects $219,000 a year from the state — a $130,000 salary as a top aide to the governor plus $89,000 in state pension.

Worse for Christie, a criminal investigation is under way involving his running mate, New Jersey Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno.

As a county sheriff in 2008, Guadagno made false statements to enable her chief officer to pocket nearly $85,000 a year in retirement pay while drawing an $87,500 annual salary. The double-dipping scheme first was reported by New Jersey Watchdog in 2010.

The state's investigation is assigned to the Attorney's General's Division of Criminal Justice, a unit where Guadagno once served as deputy director. Despite the apparent conflict, Christie has not appointed a special prosecutor.

A spokesman for Christie and Guadagno declined to comment. The Attorney General's Office did not respond to questions.

Pension abuses are so rampant in New Jersey that even the agency investigating Guadagno has its own controversy.

Twenty-three supervisors and investigators for the Attorney General’s Office and DCJ are using legal loopholes to draw salaries and pension pay, New Jersey Watchdog found. On average, each pockets $164,000 a year — $96,000 in salary and $68,000 in pension.

Most "retired" for just one night. Those officers left their positions with the Attorney General’s Office only to return to the same employer the next morning with new job titles — and two paychecks instead of one.

In a continuing series of investigative reports, New Jersey Watchdog exposed similar double-dipping practices involving 125 officers employed by prosecutors, 18 officials from a state Homeland Security Unit and 44 county sheriffs and undersheriffs — in addition to the Guadagno story.

Democratic State Sen. Fred Madden is a "triple-dipper" who collects more than $241,000 a year from public coffers — $49,000 as a legislator, $106,983 as a police academy dean and an $85,272 pension as a State Police retiree.

"I don't have a problem with it at all," said Madden.

The Guadagno controversy
While Madden and others profit from loopholes in pension rules, the circumstances surrounding Christie's second-in-command raise questions of fraud and deception. 

Guadagno was elected sheriff of Monmouth County in 2007. She previously worked as an assistant U.S. attorney and as an assistant New Jersey attorney general. From 1998 to 2001, Guadagno served as deputy director of the DCJ — the unit now assigned to investigate the case in which she's a major figure.

In 2008, Guadagno hired Michael Donovan Jr., a retired investigator for the county prosecutor, as the sheriff’s “chief of law enforcement division.” She announced the appointment in a memo to her staff.

Monmouth County Sheriff's Office

The focus of a criminal investigation of pension abuse, Chief Michael Donovan takes an oath of office in the Monmouth County, N.J., Sheriff's Office on Sept. 22, 2008. Donovan's job title was fudged to allow him to collect his pension and his pay at the same time. The swearing in was witnessed by his mother, Emily, and then-Sheriff Kim Guadagno, now the state's lieutenant governor. Donovan was sworn in by Judge Lawrence M. Lawson.

But there was a problem. As a sheriff's chief officer — a position covered by the pension system — Donovan would be required to stop receiving pension checks and resume contributions to the state retirement fund.

Guadagno fudged the job title, so Donovan could double-dip. In county payroll records, the oath of office and a news release, Donovan was called the sheriff's "chief warrant officer" — a low-ranking position exempt from the pension system.

A chief warrant officer oversees the service of warrants and other legal documents. In contrast, the sheriff's official website identified Donovan as "sheriff's officer chief," supervising 115 subordinate officers and 30 civilian employees.

On Guadagno’s organizational chart, Donovan was listed as chief of law enforcement — and the position of chief warrant officer was conspicuously absent.

The ruse allowed Donovan to collect an $87,500 salary from Monmouth County in addition to an $85,000 pension as a retired county employee.

A Conflicted Investigation
When Guadagno was elected as Christie's running mate in the 2009 election, she resigned as sheriff.

In 2010, state Treasury pension officials began to ask Monmouth County about retiree Donovan's employment. "I would respectfully request that former Sheriff Guadagno be contacted..." replied her successor, Shaun Golden, in a letter forwarded to the Treasury.

The Treasury denied the existence of any correspondence or email contact with Guadagno or Christie regarding Donovan. Officials also rejected requests for records of the Treasury's inquiry.

In response, New Jersey Watchdog filed a formal complaint with the state Government Records Council, a body consisting of gubernatorial appointees and cabinet officials. One year later, the council has yet to render an advisory opinion.

Meanwhile, the state Police and Firemen's Retirement System's Board of Trustees took action of its own.

"It's a double-whammy," said PFRS chairman John Sierchio. "If you're going to retire under one job title and come back under another title, we have a problem with that. The chief of sheriff is a covered title under the pension system — and they should be contributing instead of drawing out."

The PFRS board voted in May 2011 to call for a criminal investigation of Donovan and parallel instances involving John Dough, of Essex County, and Harold Gibson, of Union County. The case was referred to DCJ.

However, the investigation is riddled with a maze of potential conflicts of interest:

• DCJ is probing allegations involving its own former deputy director, Guadagno.
• Nearly two dozen DCJ investigators and supervisors are "double-dippers" who collect state paychecks and pensions.
• Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa, a Christie appointee, is ultimately in charge of the probe of fellow cabinet member Guadagno. Chiesa is also former chief counsel to Christie.
• Despite evidence of possible wrongdoing by his lieutenant governor, Christie has not appointed a special prosecutor or authorized an independent investigation.

One year later, the PFRS board remains in the dark. "I keep asking, but we haven't been told anything," said Sierchio.

New Jersey Governor's Office

Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno of New Jersey. When she was a county sheriff, her office fudged a job description and organizational charts to allow an aide to double-dip on his pension. Guadagno has declined to comment.

Sean Conner, a spokesman for Christie and Guadagno, refused to listen to questions about Guadagno's role or the need for a special prosecutor.

"Let me stop you right there," Conner told New Jersey Watchdog. "If it was referred to DCJ, you need to call DCJ."

The Attorney General's Office did not respond to questions about the investigation.

Back in Monmouth County, Donovan has another new job title — but he’s still a double-dipper. In February 2011, Golden named him undersheriff in charge of law enforcement — a strikingly similar position, but one apparently exempt in the labyrinth of pension rules. Donovan currently gets an $86,000 annual pension on top of his $92,000 salary.

While sheriff's chief, Donovan pocketed $227,000 in retirement checks. Since he did not re-enroll in the pension system, he avoided $18,000 in contributions to the retirement fund. If state authorities ultimately determine Donovan violated pension rules, he could be forced to repay $245,000.

Reform...except for double-dipping
Pension fraud and widespread abuse are nothing new in New Jersey.

The federal Securities and Exchange Commission accused New Jersey of pension fraud in 2010. It was the first time the SEC had taken action against a state government over public pension funds.

According to the SEC, New Jersey misled its bond investors from 2001 to 2007 by failing to disclose it had not met its obligation to fund public workers' pension funds. The lawsuit was settled with a cease-and-desist order, which the state accepted without admitting or denying the charges. The alleged fraud occurred on the watch of four previous governors.

Christie vowed to overhaul the pension system. With the state facing a $45 billion pension shortfall when he took office, the new governor spearheaded legislation that he signed into law last year.

"We are putting the people first and daring to touch the third rail of politics to bring reform to unsustainable system," stated Christie in a news release. “We are once again showing the people of New Jersey that our state is leading the way on the biggest challenges before us and remains unafraid to do what is hard, but necessary."

But the reforms did little to halt widespread double-dipping by numerous public employees, including Christie's deputy chief of staff.

Louis Goetting gets $219,000 a year from the state — $130,000 in salary as a top aide to the governor plus $89,000 in state pension payments from an early retirement deal. Christie hired Goetting in 2010 as a budget guru to help trim the cost of government.

In addition, Goetting (pronounced “getting”) received two golden parachutes from public coffers before joining Christie — severance packages of $190,000 from Brookdale Community College in 2009 and $180,000 from University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in 2002.

New Jersey Governor's Office

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey has touted his pension reforms, which have done little to halt the practice of double-dipping by public employees, including his deputy chief of staff.

The bottom line: Goetting has gotten more than $1.1 million in pension and severance pay — and he still draws a six-figure salary from the state.

In answer to questions about Goetting's double-dips, the governor's press office has reiterated a statement Christie issued last year: "There is no one in my administration, myself included, who understands about the operation of this government better than Lou Goetting does. And so the people of New Jersey have gotten an incredible bargain.”

Pension reforms will not be complete without an investigative staff to monitor potential abuses, according to PFRS chairman Sierchio. He noted there are 275,000 retirees — but no investigators assigned to review complaints.

"We don't have anybody watching the store," said Sierchio. "We've got an $80 billion pension system, and nobody to investigate anything. Once you get your pension, you never have to look over your shoulder."

New Jersey Watchdog is a news website devoted to public service journalism. Read more about veteran investigative reporter Mark Lagerkvist.