Steve Janoski | NorthJersey

NorthJersey

PALISADES PARK — The borough's police department is a rudderless agency with unclear rules, an opaque chain of command and outdated internal affairs and disciplinary policies that break state guidelines, according to an independent review ordered by town officials.

Mayor Christopher Chung said the findings shocked him and that the borough should suspend Chief Mark Jackson.

“We knew about it, but we didn’t know it was this severe,” Chung said of the department's issues. “This is not an acceptable situation.”

Jackson, a 34-year veteran who was appointed chief in 2016, did not respond Friday to a request for comment.

Borough officials hired security risk management firm Hillard Heintze to review the department following the collapse of a school security program that sought to staff district buildings with armed guards. But the school board withdrew late last summer after a NorthJersey.com and USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey investigation found borough officials did not collect resumes or do background checks on the nine retired police officers they hired.

Carl Su

The investigation also found that during their careers, several guards were accused of serious indiscretions such as aggravated assault, police brutality, lying to authorities and threatening public officials with retaliation.

The council had tasked Jackson with overseeing the program, and the school board squarely blamed him for its failure.

The police department has dealt with other issues as well, including several officer suspensions and a discrimination lawsuit in which a former officer claims he heard Jackson and Councilman Henry Ruh making homophobic comments.

The council commissioned the probe earlier this year after Jackson ignored Chung’s requests to file weekly reports with officials, the mayor said. The three members of the council's Police Committee will recommend a response next week after they review the findings. The full council must vote on any disciplinary action, Chung said.

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David Lorenzo, the borough administrator, said officials realize the gravity of the report.

“Everyone here has a little bit of fault — the politicians, the brass, the rank and file and myself,” Lorenzo said Thursday. “We’ve collectively allowed it to get to this point where drastic action needs to be taken, right now … the borough deserves better. The residents deserve better.”

The report

Representatives from Hillard Heintze built the 12-page report with facts gleaned from two days of interviews with police officers, borough officials and the department brass.

The review found the department does not uniformly apply its rules and does not thoroughly document its internal investigations, leading to uneven consequences for officers.

The report also said several officers’ certifications had lapsed in areas like radar operation, primarily because the department does not require continual training.

“Training and certification maintenance do not appear to be a priority of the Department’s administration,” the report said. “The failure of a police department to provide adequate training tends to get communities quickly enjoined into a lawsuit involving allegations of police misconduct.”

It also found Jackson’s command staff makes slow decisions because the chief does not delegate administrative work. And it noted Jackson rarely holds meetings — he does not meet regularly with his command staff, and hasn’t held a departmental meeting in three to four years, the review said.

The department is also working with obsolete policies and procedures, and its internal affairs and disciplinary guidelines do not comply with the state Attorney General’s, the report said.

The report said the department should overhaul its rules and regulations, create a written policing strategy, develop a training program and reorganize itself to fit an updated mission, among other things.

On Tuesday, the Borough Council voted to let Hillard Heintze review the department's internal affairs files and assess employee issues. The council also asked the firm to develop a plan to address the concerns its review outlined, and possibly meet with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office to discuss “pending matters.”

A prosecutor’s office spokeswoman did not immediately return a request for comment.

Chung said the moves are crucial to restoring the public's shaken faith in a police department that has too often found itself in hot water.

"It's been too long with no action," Chung said. "For me to ask our taxpayers to trust me [because] we're going to make this happen — it's going to be a hard sell. But we have to start somewhere."