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(Aristide Economopoulos/The Star-Ledger)

The Edison Police Department, like a bad soap opera, continues to churn out plot lines that seem too outrageous to be true.

The latest is the discovery that security cameras throughout police headquarters and the local courts have been recording conversations without warrants. The devices were placed in areas where police union officials have confidential conversations and near the courtroom where defendants confer with their attorneys.

This conduct was clearly illegal and merits a criminal investigation to determine if it was deliberate. Police Chief Thomas Bryan had promised that the audio-recording capability of these cameras would be disabled when the cameras went up last year, and he insists the private contractor that installed the cameras is to blame. The contractor is not commenting.

Chilling as this news is, it is not surprising. This department is out of control, divided by factional fighting and crippled by political meddling. In the past 20 years, more than 30 officers have resigned or been fired amid allegations of wrongdoing. One robbed a bank. Another fled the scene of an accident naked. Another was accused of seeking to trade cocaine for sex.

This year alone, one officer was accused of swigging beer in his patrol car while on duty, and another officer of firebombing the home of his captain while the captain’s wife, children and mother slept inside.

Another officer stands accused of returning to the scene of an emergency call at a hotel, in uniform, to proposition a woman for sex.

Local elected leaders have added to the drama by making promotions based on political faction. The outgoing mayor promoted eight officers in the final few months of her term this year, matching the stunt that her predecessor pulled for the other faction.

Last year a report by The Star-Ledger’s Mark Mueller found that police investigators had kept files on the mayor and on the political donations of police officers and their families. Lawsuits are the weapon of choice in this factional feud. Mueller found last year that nearly 10 percent of the force had filed suits against the chief, the mayor, the township or all three.

Given all this, you have to wonder why the Christie administration has failed to use its authority to step in and clean house. Jeffrey Chiesa, the former attorney general, said last year the "history of abuse and misconduct" in the department is "long and disturbing." But he didn’t act and neither have his successors. The only response has been a weak and limited intervention into parts of the internal affairs bureau by the county prosecutor.

What’s needed is aggressive state intervention. Local politicians have not only failed to fix this problem, they have also contributed to it by picking sides and meddling.

Assemblyman Peter Barnes (D-Middlesex) drafted a bill that would require the attorney general to take over the internal affairs division of the police department, but the Senate has not acted on that. And the problems of this department go way beyond internal affairs, so a more aggressive state intervention is called for.

In the end, this is about public safety. Police officers who are busy fighting silly internal turf wars cannot possibly be as focused as they should be on fighting crime. So what exactly is the Christie administration waiting for?

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