Police/EMS Calls and Response
Dear Brick Township,
This is a request for public records made under OPRA and the common law right of access. I am not required to fill out an official form. Please acknowledge receipt of this message.
Records requested:
All Police/EMS calls and responses for the years 2000-2020 for:
Any & All Addresses of Route 88 West, Brick Township, NJ 08724
Any & All Residences of West Princeton Avenue, Brick Township, NJ 08724
Any & All Residences of Forge Pond Road, Brick Township, NJ 08724
Any & All Residences of Tilford Boulevard, Brick Township, NJ 08724
Any & All Residences of Harvard Avenue, Brick Township, NJ 08724
Any & All Residences of Larsen Street, Brick Township, NJ 08724
Any & All Residences of Fort Street, Brick Township, NJ 08724
Any & All Residences of Edge Street, Brick Township, NJ 08724
Any & All Residences of Hoffman Street, Brick Township, NJ 08724
Any & All Residences of Laurelton Street, Brick Township, NJ 08724
Any & All Residences of Griggs Street, Brick Township, NJ 08724
Any & All Residences of Olden Street, Brick Township, NJ 08724
Any & All Residences of Yale Place, Brick Township, NJ 08724
Thank you,
Resident
In response to you below OPRA request:
Please identify the specific record(s) that you are requesting. As recognized by the court, and OPRA Request is not intended as a research took, but rather as an avenue for citizens to obtain specific government records. MAG Entertainment, LLC v Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control, 375 N.J. Super. 534, 550 (2005(. OPRA simply operates to make identifiable government records readily accessible for copying, inspection or examination. Also, the Appellate Division, Elizabeth v. City of Hoboken, Docket No. A-0508-06Ts, held that "OPRA is not intended to be used as a fishing expedition or as a research tool to compile unknown documents".
Sincerely,
Jessica L. Larney, RMC/CMR
Assistant Municipal Clerk
Deputy Registrar of Vital Statistics
Brick Township, New Jersey
732-262-1003
Dear Ms. Larney,
This was one of my first times requesting records through OPRA, so I didn't realize this would be too overly broad. To help with the wording of my request, I had noticed a previous request to your office from February 26, 2020: "All Police/EMS Calls and Responses in the years 2016-2020 for: Any & All Residences of Bay Avenue, Brick Township, NJ 08724." You responded two days later on February 28, 2020 with the requested records.
Since my request was too overly broad, may I please limit it to the years 2010-2020 for these two streets:
Any & All Residences of West Princeton Avenue, Brick Township, NJ 08724
Any & All Residences of Fort Street, Brick Township, NJ 08724
Since a previous request on February 26, 2020 was granted two days later for "any & all residences of Bay Avenue in Brick Township" using the same wording as I did, I think that my request should also be granted.
Thank you,
Resident
I will forward you below clarification to the Police Department (who makes the determination with their records) and see if this is acceptable for them. I will be in tough shortly.
Sincerely,
Jessica L. Larney, RMC/CMR
Assistant Municipal Clerk
Deputy Registrar of Vital Statistics
Brick Township, New Jersey
732-262-1003
Dear Ms. Larney,
Thank you for your quick response and assistance.
Yours sincerely,
Resident
Please find the attached report.
It has been redacted citing:
N.J.S.A 2C:25-33 ("Prevention of Domestic Violence Act of 1991") states that: All records maintained pursuant to this act shall be confidential and shall not be made available to any individual except where provided by law.
N.J.S.A 2A:4A-60: Social, medical, psychological, legal and other records of the court and probation division and records of law enforcement agencies, pertaining to juveniles charged as a delinquent or found to be part of a juvenile-family crisis, shall be strictly safeguarded.
Executive Order #26 (McGreevey 2002) 4) Information relating to medical, psychiatric or psychological history, diagnosis, treatment or evaluation.
Sincerely,
Jessica L. Larney, RMC/CMR
Assistant Municipal Clerk
Deputy Registrar of Vital Statistics
Brick Township, New Jersey
732-262-1003
Dear Ms. Larney,
Now that the correct spelling of the addresses in the incident search logs is known, please send these records that were requested on August 14:
"Police Department Incident Search List (listing Incident Number, Call Date/Time, Location, Incident Type, and Case Number) for the following addresses from 2010-2020:
Any & All Residences of We Princeton Avenue."
Yours sincerely,
Resident
The Brick Township Police Records Dept. have checked every variable of West, including "We" and still no other records were responsive than what was initial sent to you for OPRA #758-20.
Sincerely,
Jessica L. Larney, RMC/CMR
Assistant Municipal Clerk
Deputy Registrar of Vital Statistics
Office of the Township Clerk/Vital Statistics
401 Chambers Bridge Road
Brick, New Jersey 08723
732-262-1003
Dear Ms. Larney,
Here is a second comparison to prove that complete records for West Princeton addresses are not being generated when you do the incident search by address (most likely a computer glitch/issue).
In the February 2016 township arrest log sent in OPRA # 1267-20, the log lists an arrest address as "1699 We Princeton Ave" on 2/4/16 at 07:29:00. However, in your response to OPRA # 758-20 for all incidents on West Princeton Avenue from 2010-2020, that incident is not listed.
Yours sincerely,
Resident
Please see the response and explanation below from the Brick Township Police Records:
758-20
In response to the example provided. “In the February 2016 township arrest log sent in OPRA # 1267-20, the log lists an arrest address as "1699 We Princeton Ave" on 2/4/16 at 07:29:00. However, in your response to OPRA # 758-20 for all incidents on West Princeton Avenue from 2010-2020, that incident is not listed.” Our system will only allow us to search for GEO Verified addresses. When the arrest was entered into the system, the address was incorrectly entered as 1699 We Princeton Ave. The street name in the computer that is GEO Verified is West Princeton Ave. That being said we are able to search addresses as W Princeton Ave, We Princeton or West Princeton Ave as the computer knows to default W and the We to West. However when the arrest location was entered as We Princeton Ave the officer entering the information, unfortunately they utilized the Override option. We are not able to search for addresses that have been overridden and the address is not a valid address. An upgrade to the system in 2019 makes it more difficult to happen but unfortunately it did, and can still, occur. When searching records by date ANY AND ALL addresses will appear even those entered incorrectly.
Sincerely,
Jessica L. Larney, RMC/CMR
Assistant Municipal Clerk
Deputy Registrar of Vital Statistics
Office of the Township Clerk/Vital Statistics
401 Chambers Bridge Road
Brick, New Jersey 08723
732-262-1003
Dear Ms. Larney,
Thank you for passing along the detailed explanation as to why certain addresses can not be found when searching by address. Please pass this along to the department and let them know I appreciate them taking the time to explain why it was happening. So, it seems the best way to go about this then is to get monthly incident search report lists for the township. And, in order for them to be easily printed and not need anyone at the department to spend time redacting incidents, hopefully the "Incident Type" column can be omitted and just the rest of the information sent. I will send in a new OPRA request for that and see how it goes.
Yours sincerely,
Resident