Emergency vehicle crashes
Dear Ridgewood Village,
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:
I would like to receive any accident reports, incident reports, aided reports, operations reports, internal affairs records, investigation reports, citations, summonses issued, charge sheets, disposition of charges, court records, legal actions, lawsuits filed, settlement agreements, judgements, CAD / dispatcher / police journal entry records, ambulance reports, patient care reports, fire department response reports, sobriety test results, total station diagrams, accident reconstruction diagrams and reports, 911 tapes, any dispatch calls, images, recordings, video recordings, surveillance video, dashboard camera video, body worn camera video of the crash itself or the driver or any other persons being interviewed by the police, and email or other written communications
relating to any accident or incident involving a police vehicle, fire vehicle, ambulance, paramedic vehicles, supervisor vehicle, emergency response vehicles, first responder, police officer, EMT, paramedic, firefighter, code enforcement officer, law enforcement officer, REGARDLESS OF PAY OR VOLUNTEER STATUS OR IF THE CRASH WAS WHILE RESPONDING TO EMERGENCY, NOT DURING AN EMERGENCY RESPONSE, “ON DUTY”, OR “OFF DUTY”, or wherein the box stating “Resp to Emergency” or “Responding to Emergency” is checked off on an accident or crash investigation report, and for the original situation or emergency that resulted in the dispatching of the resources and personnell in the first place that are in your possession
from January 1, 2012 until the December 31, 2023.
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,
mountaindew lightning
I have received your OPRA request. You must file this OPRA request with
the Ridgewood
Police Department at: [1][email address], because they have
their own
Records Custodian.
Thank you.
Heather A. Mailander
Village Clerk
Village of Ridgewood
131 North Maple Avenue
Ridgewood, NJ 07450
Phone: 201-670-5500 ext. 2201
Fax: 201-652-7623
[2][Ridgewood Village request email]
[3]cid:image001.png@01DA63F7.64B7A5C0
Notice: You are advised that copies of correspondence, including e-mail
correspondence and attachments, between the public and the Village of
Ridgewood are obtainable by any person filing a request under the Open
Public Records Act (OPRA) unless subject to a specific OPRA exception.
There should be no expectation that the content of emails exchanged
between the public and municipal officials and employees will remain
private.
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. mailto:[Ridgewood Village request email]
Dear Heather Mailander,
are you unable to forward the request yourself? you are part of the same municipality and other towns will just forward the request if sent to the wrong location
as a lay person, it is beyond my ability to know how each municipality is set up or whom to contact for each individual request.
it does say for that reason near the end of the template that i used to send my requirements: "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." thank you. :)
Yours sincerely,
mountaindew lightning
I will forward it to the Police Department; however, the OPRA request should be coming from the Requestor (which is you), and
not be forwarded from me. Please make note of the Ridgewood Police Department's email for any future OPRA requests you
may file, which requires Police records.
Thank you.
Heather A. Mailander
Village Clerk
Village of Ridgewood
131 North Maple Avenue
Ridgewood, NJ 07450
Phone: 201-670-5500 ext. 2201
Fax: 201-652-7623
[Ridgewood Village request email]
Dear Heather Mailander,
ok thank you. sorry for the inconvenience and will take into advicement.
please note that because this request was proceessed through OPRA michine, the police should still respond via the link/email that was originally provided to you, which is why im asking you to forward for the sake of consistency with this website. i am unable to see what was generated for you once i hit "send" on this website.
Yours sincerely,
mountaindew lightning
Good Afternoon,
The Ridgewood Police Department received your Open Public Records Act
(OPRA) request and Common Law request on 9/30/24. Since there was no
established Common Law interest in the documents, your request is being
denied. As for the OPRA request, this request cannot be fulfilled due to
the nature of it being overly broad. Please be more specific on your
request, and would advise you to narrow your date range to avoid costly
service charges and an elongated extension. Further in your request, you
ask for the checked boxes for “resp to Emergency” or “Responding to
Emergency” in the accident reports. This part of the request cannot be
done on our end, there is no way to search specifically for that material,
but rather will have to be researched. Therefore, does not fall under
OPRA.
Please also note there are fees associated with requested video footage
before release:
POTENTIAL COST: An officer needs to review and potentially redact every
video for each officer on scene. This can take up to three hours per hour
of video. The requestor may be billed for the hourly rate of the officer
who does the redactions. This is an example of what to expect: An
incident has two officers who respond for 1 hour. That is two hours of
video that may take up to 6 hours to process. The hourly rate is $25.
Therefore, you may be billed $150 (2 cameras x 1 hour length x 3 hours
redaction x $25). The cost may be more or less than this depending on how
many videos there are and how long it takes to actually process the
footage. Please be aware there is a minimum fee of $25 for redactions.
At this time, there can not be a search/redactions made on our end due to
the broad request. Please review and submit your modified response with
more information.
Thank you,
Ridgewood Police Department
t: 201.670.5500
f: 551.305.6394
131 N Maple Ave, Ridgewood, NJ
07450
NOTICE OF CONFIDENTIALITY
This message, including any prior messages and attachments, may contain
advisory, consultative and/or deliberative material, confidential
information or privileged communications of The Ridgewood Police
Department. Access to this message by anyone other than the sender and the
intended recipient(s) is unauthorized. If you are not the intended
recipient of this message, any disclosure, copying, distribution or action
taken or not taken in reliance on it, without the expressed written
consent of the Village, is prohibited. If you have received this message
in error, you should not save, scan, transmit, print, use or disseminate
this message or any information contained in this message in any way and
you should promptly delete or destroy this message and all copies of it.
Please notify the sender by return e-mail if you have received this
message in error.
Notice: You are advised that copies of correspondence, including e-mail
correspondence and attachments, between the public and the Village of
Ridgewood are obtainable by any person filing a request under the Open
Public Records Act (OPRA) unless subject to a specific OPRA exception.
There should be no expectation that the content of emails exchanged
between the public and municipal officials and employees will remain
private.
Dear rpdredactions,
thank you for your information.
given that the entire practice of filing records requests sometimes seems more like an art form to be learned than anything straightforward, i appreciate your candor and feedback.
as you may have figured out by my using a first and last name that seems to more closely resemble a flavor of soda than an actual person’s name, and, as we all know, the law allows the citizen to file OPRA requests anonymously (as well as pseudonymously), i would like to continue to exercise my rights not just to obtain these records but to continue to do so anonymously.
how would i be able to send or deposit money, without compromising my right to remain anonymous?
please modify my request such that i am no longer interested in receiving video footage in relation to this request.
thank you.
Yours sincerely,
mountaindew lightning
Anonymous Requestor,
We understand your concerns regarding retaining your anonymity. If you do decide to continue your request, we accept Money Orders that can be sent via mail. Therefore, the method of payment would not have your name on it.
To recap, you requested:
I would like to receive any accident reports, incident reports, aided reports, operations reports, internal affairs records, investigation reports, citations, summonses issued, charge sheets, disposition of charges, court records, legal actions, lawsuits filed, settlement agreements, judgements, CAD / dispatcher / police journal entry records, ambulance reports, patient care reports, fire department response reports, sobriety test results, total station diagrams, accident reconstruction diagrams and reports, 911 tapes, any dispatch calls, images, recordings, video recordings, surveillance video, dashboard camera video, body worn camera video of the crash itself or the driver or any other persons being interviewed by the police, and email or other written communications
relating to any accident or incident involving a police vehicle, fire vehicle, ambulance, paramedic vehicles, supervisor vehicle, emergency response vehicles, first responder, police officer, EMT, paramedic, firefighter, code enforcement officer, law enforcement officer, REGARDLESS OF PAY OR VOLUNTEER STATUS OR IF THE CRASH WAS WHILE RESPONDING TO EMERGENCY, NOT DURING AN EMERGENCY RESPONSE, “ON DUTY”, OR “OFF DUTY”, or wherein the box stating “Resp to Emergency” or “Responding to Emergency” is checked off on an accident or crash investigation report, and for the original situation or emergency that resulted in the dispatching of the resources and personnel in the first place that are in your possession
from January 1, 2012 until the December 31, 2023.
The following is our response to your Open Public Records Request, asking for clarification:
A. Regarding your request, here are a few facts to consider:
1. In the timeframe you noted (1/1/12 – 12/31/23), the Ridgewood Police Department responded to or initiated approximately 285,000 Calls for Service.
2. Of those Calls for Service, approximately 12,000 were classified as a motor vehicle accident.
3. Our only classifications for motor vehicle accidents are fatal, with injury, without injury, slight, and no police action. We do not have a search option for type of driver, their profession, responding to emergency, etc. even though they are boxes on the NJTR1.
4. Our agency is required by the Open Public Records Act to “search” for records but is not required to conduct “research” by reviewing public records to find specific information.
B. Regarding the type of documents you requested, the Ridgewood Police Department does not maintain the following records. You need to contact the Village Clerk’s Office or the Ridgewood Municipal Court to request:
1. court records
2. legal actions
3. lawsuits filed
4. settlement agreements
5. judgements
6. ambulance reports
7. patient care reports
8. fire department response reports
9. email or other written communications
10. disposition of charges
C. Regarding the type of documents you requested, the Ridgewood Police Department needs clarification on the following records that you requested:
1. Can you describe what you mean by “aided reports”?
2. Can you describe what you mean by “total station diagrams”?
D. The Ridgewood Police Department does maintain the following types of records generally, but cannot guarantee any are specifically related to your request yet.
1. accident reports
2. accident reconstruction diagrams and reports
3. incident reports
4. operations reports
5. investigation reports
6. citations
7. summonses issued
8. charge sheets
9. CAD / dispatcher / police journal entry records
10. sobriety test results
11. 911 tapes
12. any dispatch calls
13. images
14. recordings
15. video recordings
16. surveillance video
17. dashboard camera video
18. body worn camera video of the crash itself or the driver or any other persons being interviewed by the police
19. internal affairs records
E. We need clarification on the following part of your request: “relating to any accident or incident involving a…” Accident reports are what document any vehicle, including the vehicles you mention, involved in a motor vehicle accident. However “or incident involving” needs clarification. Almost every incident “involves” a vehicle that is driven by a first responder to a scene. Could you please specify what type of incident you are referring to beyond a motor vehicle accident?
F. Since we cannot search for the specific type of vehicle involved, the only way to locate those reports would be a one-by-one review of nearly 12,000 accident reports. Because of this, we are unable to fulfill your request as is without:
1. You significantly narrow your search range, both in time and type of record.
2. You break up your request into multiple requests with more manageable time periods and tell us the order in which you want the requests fulfilled.
3. Provide more specifics on a particular incident(s) you are looking for (e.g. “a motor vehicle accident involving a fire truck responding to an emergency on or about 10/2/24”)
4. Request only accident reports and, once they are reviewed, ask for additional supporting documents for a particular accident or accidents. This can easily be searched and would not involve research. We can respond with either a denial, provide the record, or notify you there is no records responsive.
G. With all of the above in mind, if you do request all the accident reports over the original timespan, we would likely be unable to send them electronically. If we can, we would need to evaluate the amount of time this would take and consider the potential of hourly labor charges (something we would discuss later). Paper copies could be mailed or left for pickup but would incur costs (5 cents per page). Most accident reports are 2 pages so 24,000 pages x $0.05 would be $1,200.
Please let us know how you would like to proceed. Based on your response, we can determine how we will proceed with your request.
Ridgewood Police Department
t: 201.670.5500
f: 551.305.6394
131 N Maple Ave, Ridgewood, NJ 07450
NOTICE OF CONFIDENTIALITY
This message, including any prior messages and attachments, may contain advisory, consultative and/or deliberative material, confidential information or privileged communications of The Ridgewood Police Department. Access to this message by anyone other than the sender and the intended recipient(s) is unauthorized. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, any disclosure, copying, distribution or action taken or not taken in reliance on it, without the expressed written consent of the Village, is prohibited. If you have received this message in error, you should not save, scan, transmit, print, use or disseminate this message or any information contained in this message in any way and you should promptly delete or destroy this message and all copies of it. Please notify the sender by return e-mail if you have received this message in error.
Good Morning,
Today marks the 7th Business day from our last email. Since we have not heard from you, this OPRA request has been considered fulfilled. If you need anything further, you may send another OPRA request.
Thank you,
Ridgewood Police Department
t: 201.670.5500
f: 551.305.6394
131 N Maple Ave, Ridgewood, NJ 07450
NOTICE OF CONFIDENTIALITY
This message, including any prior messages and attachments, may contain advisory, consultative and/or deliberative material, confidential information or privileged communications of The Ridgewood Police Department. Access to this message by anyone other than the sender and the intended recipient(s) is unauthorized. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, any disclosure, copying, distribution or action taken or not taken in reliance on it, without the expressed written consent of the Village, is prohibited. If you have received this message in error, you should not save, scan, transmit, print, use or disseminate this message or any information contained in this message in any way and you should promptly delete or destroy this message and all copies of it. Please notify the sender by return e-mail if you have received this message in error.