The Attorney General of New Jersey Matthew Platkin and the state’s Division on Civil Rights filed a lawsuit last week against Clark Township alleging the town and its police department “systematically discriminated against and harassed Black and other non-white motorists.”
The lawsuit comes following an investigation that focused on the time period from 2015 through March 2025. The investigation allegedly found that Clark Township and the Clark Police Department had a number of discriminatory policing practices following commands from the town’s longtime former mayor, Salvatore Bonaccorso, and police leadership.
Back in 2020, the Union County Prosecutor took over the running of the Clark Police Department amid misconduct allegations, with the state attorney general promising a public report on the problems there.
Now, the attorney general’s lawsuit says that before the Union County Prosecutor’s Office took over Clark Police operations in July 2020, the town’s leadership instructed officers to keep Black people out of the town through policing practices.
According to the lawsuit, Bonaccorso allegedly directed police to “keep chasing the spooks out of town,” using a racial slur to refer to Black people.
The lawsuit alleges — showing data analysis — that Black and Hispanic drivers were stopped and searched at far higher rates than white drivers prior to UCPO taking over the department. However, even though some racial disparities continued even after UCPO overseeing the police department, the data from 2020 to 2024 reveals “notable” improvements in policing practices that show a reduction racial disparities, the attorney general’s office said.
According to the data presented in the lawsuit, while more than 37% of the drivers stopped by Clark Police were Black or Hispanic, only 11% of the town’s population was Black or Hispanic. Additionally, 53% of the drivers stopped outside of Clark’s boundaries were Black or Hispanic. The lawsuit data also shows that Black and Hispanic drivers who were stopped were searched “respectively, at rates 3.7 times and 2.2 times higher than white drivers,” according to the Attorney General’s Office.
The New Jersey State PBA issued a statement on Jan. 15 following the lawsuit filing, said:
“The New Jersey State PBA blasts the outrageous civil suit by the Attorney General. It is clear that, as Attorney General Matthew Platkin leaves office, he is trying to alter history. Today’s actions by his office are said to be an examination of practices over 10 years. His office has been in charge of the Clark Police Department for nearly 5 1/2 years. In July of 2020, Union County Prosecutors Office took over Clark Police Members of Clark PBA Local #135 were outraged by the back-door comments made by leaders of their department years ago. The officers themselves made the cultural shift—not because of lawsuits, but because it was the right thing to do. The AG’s own data confirms that Clark officers are policing honorably. It is a shame that the Attorney General’s press release failed to acknowledge the professionalism of the members of the Clark Police Department. It was a simple factual statement that was glaringly missing from the Attorney General’s statement today.The NJSPBA will stand up for our members and continue to call out political grandstanding.”
Meanwhile, current Clark Mayor Angel Albanese issued a statement the same day of the filing, calling the lawsuit “frivolous workings of an outgoing Attorney General playing politics.”
Albanese’s statement said in part:
“The fact is, based upon the unfortunate and reprehensible comments of a handful of Police Department employees that occurred nearly a decade ago, the Union County Prosecutor’s Office had established oversight of the Clark Township Police Department for over five years.
During this time, no systemic issues or improprieties were identified by the Prosecutor’s Office. “
Clark Township at the center of controversy
Clark Township has been in the center of controversy for years since shocking racist and sexist recordings first revealed in legal papers in 2022 allegedly involving then mayor Bonaccorso and former police chief.
Last year, Bonaccorso, was sentenced to three years of probation on public corruption charges weeks after pleading guilty to using Clark employees for his private business, a landscaping and underground oil storage tank removal company.
Bonaccorso, a Republican, pled guilty to using township employees to operate his removal company and submitted fraudulent applications to various municipalities to unlawfully obtain permits for the tank removals.
The plea agreement called for the 64-year-old to resign immediately from the mayoral position he had held since 2001.
In addition to probation, Judge Lisa Welsh on Friday fined Bonaccorso $15,000 and banned the former mayor as well as his landscaping and underground storage tank company, Bonaccorso & Son LLC, from bidding for public contracts, entering into any public contracts, or conducting business with the state or its political subdivisions for five years.
Bonaccorso’s seat was filled by Albanese.
Bonaccorso has been a controversial figure for years. In addition to public corruption allegations, he has been recorded making racist comments about minorities and sexist comments about women police officers. After NBC New York aired recordings of Bonaccorso’s offensive comments, he publicly apologized.
Bonaccorso’s plea deal concerning the corruption charges he faced was not related to the racist recordings.
