New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin filed a lawsuit against Clark Township and the Clark Police Department (CPD) alleging they engaged in discriminatory practices against black and other minority motorists.
The complaint alleges that the township and police department held “an egregious and longstanding pattern and practice of unlawful discrimination” against black drivers — especially those coming from nearby towns like Rahway and Linden.
The township’s leaders allegedly instructed police officers to keep black people out of the community, according to the complaint. Officers focused on traffic enforcement on roads connecting to the Garden State Parkway, conducting an overwhelming number of traffic stops against black drivers while issuing a flurry of tickets for minor or made-up reasons.
The practice turned Clark into a “sundown town,” where, as one black resident said, “[If] you look like me or darker than me, we all know: just go around Clark.”
The former mayor and top police officials not only encouraged these practices, but also used blatantly racist language and slurs when discussing black and Hispanic people and pushed officers to meet quotas for vehicle stops and enforcement, the complaint alleges.
In 2019, the mayor allegedly told a lieutenant to “keep chasing the spooks out of town” and praised them for “doing your job so we don’t have no problems.”
A former officer recalled former Mayor Salvatore Bonnacorso praising a traffic stop of a black motorist, saying, “Good for you, pulling over that n*gger — keep them out of town.”
The complaint refers to “audio recordings and interviews with former officers confirmed that Mayor Bonaccorso and members of CPD leadership regularly used ‘nigger,’ ‘spook,’ ‘shine,’ ‘coon,’ ‘monkey,’
The attorney general’s office argues that this conduct violates state laws mandating that the government ensure equal protection and fair access to a public service. It referenced data showing that black and Hispanic drivers were stopped and searched by Clark Township police at much higher rates than their share of the population.
Black residents of nearby towns “would not even come through Clark” because they feared harassment from law enforcement.
ABC News highlighted the analysis, showing that black drivers were stopped 3.7 times more often than whites in Clark between 2015 and 2020. Police stopped Hispanic drivers 2.2 times more often than white drivers.
The Stanford Open Policing Project published a study in 2020 analyzing 100 million traffic stops across the country to ascertain whether police officers treat black drivers differently from white drivers. Researchers found that police stopped black motorists far more often than white drivers.
Part of the study involved comparing traffic stops made during the day versus at night, when it’s harder for drivers to see the driver’s race. At night, black drivers made up a smaller percentage of traffic stops.
Researchers also found that police searched black drivers’ vehicles 1.5 to two times as often as white drivers after traffic stops. Yet, when officers searched black drivers, they found contraband less often than when they searched white drivers. This suggests officers justified searches of black motorists’ vehicles based on weaker evidence than what they required for whites.
Current Clark Township Mayor Angel Albanese issued a statement denying the allegations, calling the lawsuit “the frivolous workings of an outgoing Attorney General playing politics as he exits the office.”
“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,” she said.
