Omissions number 1,315 out of 12,905 complaints, according to a review of annual reports
Newark Police Department Director Garry McCarthy addresses the filing of a petition for reform with the U.S. Department of Justice by the ACLU in Newark on Sept. 9.NEWARK — The outcome of one of every 10 internal affairs complaints filed against Newark police officers from 2000 to 2008 was not reported to the Attorney General’s Office as required by state guidelines, an analysis by The Star-Ledger shows.
The omissions number 1,315 out of 12,905 complaints, according to a review of annual internal affairs reports that every police department in the state is required to file each year. The problem occurs when internal affairs complaints recorded as unresolved at the end of each year are not added into the next year’s report, making it impossible to determine their result from mandatory public records.
The missing statistics are among the issues the American Civil Liberties Union raised last week when it petitioned the federal government to investigate the Newark police, alleging a years-long pattern of abuse against citizens. Most recently, 186 complaints filed against cops in 2008 were not carried over to the 2009 report, thus disappearing from public view, the ACLU said.
Newark police have shown "their complete inability to generate meaningful statistical data on case dispositions," the organization’s petition said.
The Star-Ledger’s analysis shows reporting errors are not confined to the state’s largest city. Statewide records from 2000 to 2008 show 90,423 complaints recorded but only 86,925 dispositions. That means the outcomes of almost 4 percent of cases — whether the complaint resulted in disciplinary action or not — are not available in public reports.
"It says in black and white in the attorney general’s guidelines that last year’s pending cases are this year’s new ones," said Deborah Jacobs, executive director of the ACLU in New Jersey. "That’s been neglected, and Newark is just one example."
Newark police officials contend it’s only an issue of bookkeeping, saying even if case results aren’t recorded in the annual reports, they are still pursued by investigators. Acting Essex County Prosecutor Robert Laurino said the mistakes were merely clerical, and said his office reviewed Newark’s internal affairs statistics in response to an inquiry from The Star-Ledger.
"We have confirmed that all the pending cases were properly investigated either by our office or by Newark Police Department Internal Affairs Unit," he said. "Above all, we believe there has been meaningful oversight of all police departments under our jurisdiction."
But some policing experts said the unreported case results undermine independent oversight of internal affairs and suggest authorities at the local, county and state levels aren’t paying enough attention to police discipline because the same reporting mistakes are made year after year.
"The reports are important to ensure there is external, objective review of the internal affairs process," said Rutgers Police Institute director Wayne Fisher, who helped write the state’s internal affairs guidelines. "Although the numbers themselves don’t necessarily indicate a problem, they certainly signal a situation where either the prosecutor or the Attorney General’s Office should have taken steps to look further into it."
The Attorney General’s Office acknowledged the mistakes but said it’s not a serious problem.
"It’s not an indication that the cases are being lost," spokesman Peter Aseltine said. "It’s simply an indication that they’re not getting it right in the reporting."
Newark’s internal affairs department came under scrutiny last week when the ACLU filed a petition documenting more than 400 allegations of police misconduct and asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate whether the department should be under a federal monitor.
City officials angrily contested the ACLU’s petition, saying the police department has been improving and does not need federal oversight.
Officials said oversight of Newark internal affairs already includes random tests to ensure investigators are handling complaints correctly. The county also examines a selection of cases for possible criminality.
Newark police shared some statistics from their internal database as evidence that cases aren’t being dropped. For example, only 14 of the 212 complaints recorded as pending at the end of 2008 were unresolved as of Friday. But police declined to provide details on the results of those cases and said the newspaper would have to file a public-records request.
Newark Sgt. Louis Forst said the important thing was the department kept its own records and those are accurate.
"All the dispositions are recorded," he said.
Internal affairs officers acknowledged, however, that some of the resolved cases were not recorded in their annual reports. But they said that’s only because they fill out the forms differently.
Newark’s reporting accounts for a significant proportion of the statewide omissions. The city had fewer than 15 percent of the complaints statewide, but 37.6 percent of the discrepancies.
The annual reports make their way through three levels of potential review. Each police department files the reports with a county prosecutor, which then compiles reports from all police departments in the county and sends them to the Attorney General’s Office.
But the reports do not appear to have received heavy scrutiny as they traveled up the state’s procedural chain.
Newark Deputy Chief Joseph Tutela, who oversees internal affairs, said the county prosecutor would have told them if the data was reported improperly.
"If something’s not right, they’ll kick it back to us," he said. "That’s never happened, as far as I know."
Laurino said his office uses the annual reports to compile its own report to the Attorney General’s Office.
"We do not analyze the numbers," he said. "We function like a clearinghouse."
Aseltine, a spokesman for the attorney general, said something similar.
"Our function is simply adding together the data we get from the counties in order to report statewide data," he said. "We would need to go to individual police departments to determine whether their reporting is off. We have not done that."
Critics said ranking officials are not using the oversight tools at their disposal.
"If the Attorney General’s Office requires departments to file reports of complaints, then the Attorney General’s Office itself is guilty of not enforcing that requirement and allowing the Newark Police Department to continue its unprofessional ways," said University of Nebraska-Omaha professor Samuel Walker, a criminal justice expert who advised the ACLU on its petition.
Fisher said external oversight, partially through the examination of annual reports, was an important part of the guidelines he helped write.
"We recognized that it was absolutely critical to have objective oversight outside the police department," he said. "For whatever reasons, decisions have been made to cut back what should be one of the most important functions of the attorney general’s office."
Aseltine said budget constraints have curtailed the state’s ability to regularly audit internal affairs operations.
"We still have the expertise. If a request was made, we would consider doing one," he said. "We no longer have an Office of Law Enforcement Services, and we don’t have the staff to invite any office that wants a review to have one done."
Frederick Kaimann and David Giambusso contributed to this report.