Crime data on drug crimes and staff roster
Dear East Brunswick Police Department,
Please accept this electronic request for public records made under OPRA and the common law right of access. I am not required to fill out an official form or use a particular software platform to submit my request per NJSA 47:1A-6(f), which states that an email from a requestor including all of the information required on the adopted form shall suffice in place of a completed form as a valid government record request.
I HAVE NOT been convicted of any indictable offense under the laws of New Jersey, any other state, or the United States.
I WILL NOT use the requested government records for a commercial purpose.
I AM NOT seeking records in connection with a legal proceeding.
Records requested:
Good afternoon.
I hope you are doing well.
I am requesting the following records from your agency.
Can you please provide a list of officers currently employed by the police department by name and rank. Also by District/ time period.
Drug crimes possession of all illegal drugs.
I want a list of the suspects' drugs charges and the officer who made the arrest.
I want crime data on this crime from the years 2022-2025.
Also, a list of the most frequent crimes your community faces.
Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
I look forward to hearing from you.
If possible please send all requested records by email.
Thank you.
Take care and be well.
Best regards,
Cameron Oliver
904-489-9118
[email address]
My preferred delivery method for response(s) to this request is by E-mail as attachments. Please confirm you have received this request. If you are not the custodian of records, please forward my request to that person and provide their email address to me for future reference.
Yours faithfully,
Cameron John Oliver
904-489-9118
[email address]
Greetings,
This is in response to your Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request for
access to East Brunswick Police Department Records.
Your OPRA request sought access to the following records:
1. Can you please provide a list of officers currently employed by the
police department by name and rank. Also by District/ time period.
Response: A record responsive to this request is being provided. However,
it is unknown what “district/time period” means. Keep in mind custodians
are under no obligation to create a new record in response to an OPRA
request pursuant to MAG Entertainment, LLC v. Division of Alcoholic
Beverage Control, 375 N.J. Super. 534, 546 (App. Div. 2005) and New Jersey
Builders Association v. New Jersey Council on Affordable Housing, 390 N.J.
Super. 166 (App. Div. 2007). See also Matthews v. City of Atlantic City
(Atlantic), GRC Complaint No. 2008-123 (February 2009) and Librizzi v.
Twp. of Verona Police Dep't, GRC Complaint No. 2009-213 (August 2010).
2. Drug crimes possession of all illegal drugs.
• I want a list of the suspects' drugs charges and the officer who made
the arrest.
• I want crime data on this crime from the years 2022-2025.
Response: Your request is overly broad, not sufficiently clear, and
requires research. Compliance with the request would require
interpretation, analysis, and judgment by this office, which is prohibited
by OPRA. The request here would require a Department's records custodian
to search through a wide range of records and analyze which records happen
to be related to your request. This type of records research is not
required, and the request is therefore overly broad (See Burnett, 415 N.J.
Super. at 515-16).
OPRA makes identifiable government records readily accessible for
inspection, copying, or examination (Bent v. Twp. of Stafford Police
Dep't, 381 N.J. Super. 30, 37 (App. Div. 2005). Therefore, an OPRA request
"must identify with reasonable clarity those documents that are desired,
and a party cannot satisfy this requirement by simply requesting all of an
agency's documents” (Bent v. Twp. of Stafford Police Dep't, 381 N.J.
Super. 30, 37 (App. Div. 2005)). OPRA does not authorize unbridled
searches of an agency's property and "is not intended as a research tool
litigants may use to force government officials to identify and siphon
useful information" (Bent, 381 N.J. Super. at 37; MAG, 375 N.J. Super. at
543).
Therefore, requests can be denied that would require the custodian "to
manually search through all of the agency's files, analyze, compile and
collate the information contained therein" (Id. at 549; see also Bart v.
Passaic County Public Hous. Agency, 406 N.J. Super. 445, 451 (App. Div.
2009).
3. Also, a list of the most frequent crimes your community faces.
Response: This request is overly broad and does not identify any specific
government records in existence. Requests that seek information or ask
questions and do not identify specific government records are considered
invalid. Additionally, compliance with the request would require
interpretation, analysis, and judgment by this office, which is prohibited
by OPRA.
The East Brunswick Police Department reserves the right to raise any other
grounds in support of this response. The failure of the East Brunswick
Police Department to assert any exception, exemption, or privilege does
not act as a waiver of any ground for denial.
Regards,
Records Custodian
East Brunswick Police Department
1 Jean Walling Civic Center Drive
East Brunswick, NJ 08816