Nearly 400 New Jersey police officers received “major discipline” last year while 86 of them were booted from the force in 2021, according to a recent report by the state Attorney General’s Office.
That includes 16 officers fired from the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women, which is slated for closure after a scandal involving an alleged coordinated assault by staff against female prisoners in January 2021.
The new data, made public Feb. 16, is the most comprehensive accounting of police misconduct in New Jersey and represents a fraction of the nearly 38,000 active-duty officers in the state. It provides a glimpse behind the curtain of New Jersey’s police departments, where unlike many other states, punishment for everything from showing up late to work to using excessive force was until recently not made public.
A 2020 directive issued by former Attorney General Gurbir Grewal required that New Jersey police departments start disclosing “major discipline” — defined as any infraction that results in five or more days suspension.
Among the 86 firings were accusations of drinking on the job, domestic abuse, failing drug tests, misusing police vehicles and “chronic absenteeism.”
The longest term of suspension included two state troopers, who were each suspended a full year — 365 days — for separate charges including assault, gambling and drunken driving.
But government transparency advocates say the report raises more questions, pointing to officers accused of similar misconduct that received widely disparate discipline.
A few of the accounts are fairly detailed. One officer in Newark was suspended for 15 days for “allowing a civilian to operate a police vehicle in an unsafe manner” and “improperly uploaded a video of the incident onto his instagram,” according to the report.
Still more were entirely vague, like a Paulsboro patrolman fired for unspecified “misconduct on duty,” or a Westwood cop suspended 15 days for “violation of appropriate standards of conduct.”
CJ Griffin, a civil rights attorney and vocal critic of New Jersey’s police internal affairs practices, said departments that use vague descriptions like “rule violations” to explain the discipline to the public aren’t complying with the spirit of the AG directive.
“Every single thing you could do to be punished, from being tardy to work to using excessive force, those are all ‘rules violations,’ Griffin said.
The report comes as Gov. Phil Murphy’s new choice for attorney general, Matthew Platkin, takes on his role as chief law enforcement officer. Platkin has made improving relations between police and community a major plank in his platform as attorney general.
Until recently, the Garden State shielded the identities of disciplined and or fired from public view and police transparency advocates say New Jersey remains behind the curve on disclosing police misconduct.
The 161-page report, released earlier this month, relies on data turned over to the attorney general by local departments and the State Police. The disclosures “appear as provided,” the report notes, and “there are no corrections to grammar or inconsistent information.”
Steven Barnes, a spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office, noted that all of the state’s police departments complied with the directive this year, “resulting in the sharing of important information about police conduct that will contribute to greater transparency and accountability.”
According to Grewal’s 2020 directive, every disclosure of officer discipline is supposed to include a synopsis of the misconduct that includes “the identity of each officer subject to a final disciplinary action, a summary of their transgressions, and a statement of the sanction imposed.”
The state’s police unions sued, arguing that disclosing any infraction resulting in a five-day suspension or more would unduly tar officers for minor infractions. The state Supreme Court ultimately sided with the attorney general.
Karen Thompson, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, said the current disclosure set-up does conflate officers accused of minor infractions with those who abuse their position or use excessive force. But she argued the solution was more disclosure, not less.
She pointed to the case of a Brigantine police officer who received a 35-day suspension because, “While on authorized breaks, (he) failed to return to his designated sector before the required end time of certain breaks.”
“If the public saw that, they’d say, ‘OK, he didn’t come back on time. The department can make their own decision on (the discipline for) that,’” Thompson said.
Compare that to the disclosures of the Bergen County Sheriff’s Office, which disclosed that two officers were suspended — one for 10 days, another for 25 — and a third officer was fired for “violating departmental policies and procedures.”
“Policies and procedures? What does that mean?” Thompson asked. “We have absolutely no idea about the intensity of the misconduct, given that range.”
Barnes, the attorney general spokesman, acknowledged there “is still more to be done, and we will continue to work with our law enforcement partners, including by providing guidance to departments ... to ensure the public has a full accounting of any incident of major discipline and misconduct.”
Griffin noted that a bill before the state Legislature (S2656) would put New Jersey in line with many other states, which treat police internal affairs records as public documents. That measure has not received widespread support among New Jersey lawmakers.
“In an ideal world, we should have access to the actual files, so you as a reporter can tell the public what actually transpired,” Griffin said. “Our current status of the law doesn’t allow for that.”
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S.P. Sullivan may be reached at ssullivan@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter.