Police Roster and Demographic Information
Charlie Kratovil made this OPRA request to New Brunswick City as part of a batch sent to 9 authorities Automatic anti-spam measures are in place for this older request. Please let us know if a further response is expected or if you are having trouble responding.
Dear New Brunswick City,
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:
1) roster of all Law Enforcement Officers including name, badge number, rank, status, etc.
2) demographic information about the gender and race/ethnicity of each officer if available
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,
Charlie Kratovil
Dear Requestor,
Please see the attached document responsive to your OPRA request. Be
advised, pursuant to OPRA Statute N.J.S.A.47:1A-10, Personnel and pension
information are exempt from disclosure and is not considered public
information; except for the following items related to your request: Law
enforcement individual's name and position, which may fulfill the “rank”
portion of your request. The badge number, status and “etc.” would not
fall under the exception. Thank you.
Regards,
Leslie R. Zeledón, City Clerk
City of New Brunswick
78 Bayard Street, Rm. 201
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
732.745.5041 (phone)
732.745.5009 (fax)
Dear Ms. Zeledon,
Since when are badge numbers not considered public information? Other police departments have released this information in response to an identical request. I ask you to reconsider your decision on this request.
Yours sincerely,
Charlie Kratovil
Mr. Kratovil,
Pursuant to N.J.S.A. 47:1A-10 Personnel Records are exempt from disclosure, except for an individual’s name, title, position, salary, payroll record, length of service, date of separation and the reason for such separation, and the amount and type of any pension received. Within the New Brunswick Police Department badge numbers are the equivalent of personnel numbers and are therefore considered Personnel Information. Since your request was submitted pursuant to the NJ OPRA Statute, the requested information is exempt from disclosure. As for other departments and how they utilize personnel numbers vs badge numbers or how they respond to similar requests has no bearing on our response.
Regards,
Leslie R. Zeledón, City Clerk
City of New Brunswick
78 Bayard Street, Rm. 201
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
732.745.5041 (phone)
732.745.5009 (fax)
Dear Ms. Zeledon,
Thanks for your quick reply. I must again object, and respectfully note that my request was also made pursuant to the common law right of access. For purposes of that request, I submit the following:
1) I am a city resident and reporter who has covered the New Brunswick Police Department for over 15 years, and as part of my life and my work, I need to keep track of which police officers are working for the city and collect accurate information related to their public employment and service to the residents.
2) I am working on article(s) about several police departments in Central Jersey, and have made requests for this information with those departments. New Brunswick remains the only city that has claimed their badge numbers are non-public.
3) I frequently interview residents who explain their interactions with police officers to me, and identifying the officers involved can be a challenge.
4) Sometimes the residents do not take note of or remember an officer's name, but they are able to obtain/witness the officer's badge number. As such, having access to a list of all badge numbers would help myself and others to identify the officer in question by name. If you refuse my request, I would not be able to identify the officer or assist others in identifying the officer.
5) Police badge numbers are widely considered public information around the USA. In New Brunswick, they are displayed in a public, outward-facing fashion on the official NBPD uniform, which makes them distinctly different from other "personnel numbers" that your office deems to be non-public.
6) Police badge numbers are also included in police reports and video recordings made by official NBPD equipment. As such, I already have access to the numbers of many New Brunswick officers through records and other publicly accessible sources, including photographs proactively posted online by the NBPD.
7) I have obtained demographic information from several other police departments in the area, and I have previously obtained demographic information about the NBPD, after the City Council President asked the NBPD to provide the information to me. No harm came to anyone as a result of the information's release.
8) The NBPD demographic information was released to me several years ago, and I need to obtain updated information to better understand the hiring/personnel trends within our police department in recent years.
9) There is no conceivable harm that could possibly come from releasing the requested information, so the government's interest in keeping it secret is nonexistent.
I respectfully ask you to reconsider my request for the badge numbers, and demographic information, and respond to my common law right of access request. Thank you.
Yours sincerely,
Charlie Kratovil