New Jersey Libertarian Party

On May 23, 2011, the New Jersey Libertarian Party's Police Accountability Project filed an Internal Affairs complaint against an Egg Harbor Township (Atlantic County) police officer who conducted a warrantless search of a motor vehicle. The complaint was filed after two-judge Appellate Division panel found that Officer Michael Bordanaro's search of a vehicle, which resulted in him finding a loaded 9 mm handgun, was illegal because there were no "exigent circumstances" excusing him from first getting a search warrant.

On September 29, 2011, Clinton attorney Walter M. Luers filed a lawsuit on my behalf against two Atlantic County municipalities and their police officials seeking disclosure of records pertaining to a curious traffic stop during the early morning hours of February 17, 2011. A copy of that lawsuit is on-line here. A November 10, 2011 Press of Atlantic City article was written about it.

Records I requested reveal that at 2:04 a.m., Northfield City Police observed a black Mercedes sitting at a traffic light while the light went through multiple rotations. Police initially reported that they had difficulty waking the driver and getting him to "open up" the car's door. There were also recorded conversations indicating that the driver was "A.O.B." (which, in police-speak, means "alcohol on breath.")

As a result of a request from the NJ Libertarian Party Police Accountability Project, the following has been published in the New Jersey Register:

NEW JERSEY REGISTER
Copyright © 2011 by the New Jersey Office of Administrative Law

VOLUME 43, ISSUE 18

ISSUE DATE: SEPTEMBER 19, 2011

PUBLIC NOTICES

LAW AND PUBLIC SAFETY
DIVISION OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE

43 N.J.R. 2535(a)

Notice of Receipt of Petition for Rulemaking

I was contacted about this incident by one of the brothers and I passed the information on to CopBlock.org. Ademo made this video. The NJ Libertarian Party Police Accountability Project is investigating this further.

Previously Seaside Heights settled a suit for a similar arrest.

Back in 2009 we reported on Officer Joseph Rios beating a homeless man for no apparent reason in Passaic.

Superior Court Judge Donald J. Volkert Jr. has acquitted Officer Rios of a police brutality charge. Now that he has been acquitted one may assume that he will receive back pay for the time he has been on leave.

Meanwhile the victim, Ronnie Hollaway has received a $350,000 settlement from the city for the attack.

UPDATE: The video I posted was just uploaded last week, however I just learned that this is incident occured in 2008. A more informative video from the ACLU of NJ can be seen here. The Officer, Brian Sharif, was suspended however he currently works as a special officer for the Newark government schools.

Following is the New Jersey Libertarian Party Police Accountability Project's open letter to the mayor and council of Merchantville Borough (Camden County).

At issue is: A motor vehicle stop and an arrest were made by Merchantville Police officers in another municipality and a judge found that no probable cause existed for the stop. The stopped and arrested
motorist sued the police and recovered an $11,000 settlement. Yet, the Mercantville Internal Affairs Unit found that the officers "followed the appropriate departmental policies and procedures."

On May 19, 2011, the New Jersey Libertarian Party's Police Accountability Project filed an Internal Affairs Complaint against State Trooper Scott Sanders. The complaint was based on a decision of the New Jersey Superior Court, Appellate Division in which a two judge panel found that Sanders conducted an improper, warrantless search of a motor vehicle.

The court's decision caused suppression of "five dime bags of high grade marijuana, approximately a half ounce of cocaine, seven bricks of heroin, and five sealed blunts containing tobacco." Because of evidence the suppressed, the conviction and the six year prison sentence against the driver was reversed.

Last week we reported on Maplewood Township enforcing a repealed ordinance against "public intoxication."

A letter concerning the matter was sent to the Essex County Trial Court Administrator. As a result of the letter, Mr. White's conviction has been reversed and his fines have been refunded.

The reply we received from the Trial Court Administrator can be viewed here.

In April 2010, Police in Maplewood Township (Essex County) cited a man for violating the Township's "public intoxication" code even though the Township Committee repealed that provision of the code approximately a year and a half earlier. The municipal court accepted the man's guilty plea and assessed $80 in fines and costs.

In a May 23, 2011 letter, the chairman of the New Jersey Libertarian Party's Police Accountability Project asked Egg Harbor Township (Atlantic County) Mayor James McCullough to review and update the police department's on-line internal affairs reporting form.

Libertarians demand that cops live under the same laws as the rest of us

Tennent, NJ, May 18, 2011: Prompted by recent Star Ledger articles regarding police officers' habitual failure to enforce drunk driving laws against State Trooper Sheila McKaig, the New Jersey Libertarian Party (NJLP) has formally petitioned the New Jersey Attorney General to take corrective action.

On May 16, 2011, the NJLP State Board unanimously voted to send a "petition for rulemaking" to Attorney General Paula Dow asking for "some rules that genuinely and substantially address the problem of police showing favoritism to fellow officers. A copy of the petition, which was submitted to Dow on May 17, 2011, is on-line at http://njlp.org/uploads/petitionToAG.pdf.

Last weekend Camden cops brazenly fired off 33 rounds in an effort to kill a dog. Stray bullets struck several nearby cars and houses. The story was covered by several newspapers including The Courier Post.

The New Jersey Libertarian Party have previously noted the level of police misconduct in Camden here and have held a loitering law protest in Camden.

Today, I wrote the following letter, which should be self explanatory, to Ocean County Prosecutor Marlene Lynch Ford. The exhibits referred to in the letter are on-line here: http://ogtf.lpcnj.org/2010105pJ//b10418HolmesExhibits.pdf

John Paff

Somerset, New Jersey

------------------------------

April 18, 2011

Marlene Lynch Ford, Esq.

Ocean County Prosecutor's Office
119 Hooper Ave
Toms River, NJ, 08754  (via E-mail to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )

RE: State v. Holmes
Ind. No. 10-06-01190-A

Dear Prosecutor Ford:

Karl de Vries's August 27, 2010 Star Ledger article ("Hillside cop receives 3 years probation in domestic shooting") reported that Hillside police detective James Holmes was sentenced to three years probation for "shooting his stepson during a domestic dispute in his Toms River home." A copy of that article is attached as Exhibit Page 1.

After reading that article, I endeavored to learn whether Officer Holmes was, in accordance with N.J.S.A. 2C:51-2, a) required to forfeit his position as a Hillside police officer and b) disallowed from holding public office or employment in the future.