Sheilah Coley, the first African-American woman to direct the Newark and East Orange police departments, is poised to take on another barrier-breaking role: becoming the first woman to lead the Trenton Police Department.

The nomination, announced Monday by Mayor Reed Gusciora, will be the fifth person in the position since the mayor took office in July.

One county undersheriff and two senior police officers have held the position in acting capacity since then, as well as Carol Russell, a retired, 20-year Trenton police veteran, who was named director in December and arrived for work. Gusciora pulled her nomination weeks later after City Council declined to vote on her. She would have been the first woman to hold the position.

Now, it looks like Coley will earn that trailblazing title for a third time.

"We’re very excited because she’s very familiar with the challenges of urban policing and community policing,” Gusciora said. “She seems to be very down to earth. She’s very engaging as an individual.”

Yes, Coley comes with a wealth of experience, but she’s hesitant to say it’s given her a list of solutions to the violence that has long plagued Trenton.

“I don’t want to approach this as a cookie cutter," she said. “No two cities are the same.”

Still, she’ll bring lessons in community policing, stemming gang violence and supporting diversity learned during her 25-year career in Newark and three years heading East Orange.

On community policing

It’s a term that has continuously cropped up in Trenton; Gusciora has made multiple calls for a robust community policing program that will put officers in daily contact with neighborhood residents, rather than having them just rush in when a devastating shooting occurs.

In a department where many officers live in surrounding, suburban towns, the chasm between the cops and the citizens can feel ever wider. (Coley said she plans to move from Essex County to Trenton, or a town nearby, so she can be more available.)

It’s an issue she’s seen before. In Newark, Coley said police started a block watch, which grew to include residents on almost every street, or combined ones nearby. Officers would spend three days training residents, teaching them how to identify and report criminal behavior.

“How quickly we respond to a crime is going to determine how much crime we abate,” she said.

But that tactic requires building trust, and changing community perceptions of police. With high profile police shootings of unarmed black men making headlines around the country, it’s no wonder people in communities like those in Trenton and Newark might want to keep their distance from officers who are practically strangers.

Slowly, though, she said outreach through community policing and putting resource officers in schools, helps to humanize police and shape that confidence.

“We try to build a more positive experience,” she said.

On diversity

Coley, who spent more than two decades in the Newark Police Department and held each possible rank, knows what it’s like to be a fresh officer on the streets, as well as a supervisor calling the shots.

“It allows me to see the challenges that each rank faces," she said, including how the process can differ for men and women, the barriers women may face as minorities in traditionally masculine profession.

Unlike the military, which widely carries a strong sense of pride across the country, jobs in law enforcement have become less popular, she said. Rebuilding that pride and supporting minorities are parts of turning that trend around.

She also knows, from her own experience, how individual, personal challenges can feel like their own barriers.

An orphan, Coley grew up in and out of foster homes. She moved around, living in upstate New York, and then in North Carolina. But she was determined to not let that instability stop her.

In her family, there were two paths: Law enforcement jobs for the men, and factory jobs making stockings for the women.

The latter didn’t appeal to her. So at 17, she joined the U.S. Air Force, a move she said changed the course of her life.

“It all happens from within. My approach was, I’m going to get this,” she said. “I think that was just something that was in me.”

So she tells her own story now. When those in urban communities make excuses as to why they have so few options, she shows them there is a different path, the one that she’s lived.

On stopping gang violence

The stronghold of gangs and high-profile violence isn’t news in Trenton. A director who could curtail it certainly is.

A program in Newark worked to identify those likely to be the targets or shooters in retaliatory actions, Coley said. Officers then intervened, and officials worked to get them housing or employment that could draw them away from the gang.

“You actually get results,” she said.

Coley said she would want to try early intervention, which worked in Newark. When police are called to a domestic violence incident, and see that a kid may have been a witness or victim, it’s important to get them into counseling.

There also needs to be outreach to those raising children, who are sometimes grandparents rather than parents. Police need to teach grandparents how to spot signs the children might be going down the wrong path, and get officers to intervene.

“Everything is built on trust. Initially, they didn’t trust us," she said of Newark.

But turning around one life can make all the difference in deterring others. “Scared straight” might not be the best term, she said, but having former gang members and funeral home directors talk of the severity of shootings can be a game changer.

“This is not a game. You can’t go shoot someone and hit reset," she said. "You have to have that one successful story and come back to share.”

Yes, Trenton has its challenges. Coley isn’t exactly an optimist, much more a realist. Nothing is ever as bad — or good — as it appears, she said.

And to that end, maybe none of the problems are as daunting as they seem.

“I don’t think there is anything we can’t overcome,” she said.

Amanda Hoover can be reached at ahoover@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @amandahoovernj. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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