Clark Township Allegedly Used Police Department to Harass and Intimidate Black and Other Non-White Motorists to Keep Them Out of Clark

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TRENTON – Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin and the Division on Civil Rights (DCR) announced today that they have filed a complaint in New Jersey Superior Court alleging that Clark Township and the Clark Police Department (CPD) systematically discriminated against and harassed Black and other non-white motorists in violation of the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (LAD) and the New Jersey Constitution.

The complaint is based on an investigation conducted by DCR that focused on the time period from 2015 through the end of the Union County Prosecutor’s Office’s (UCPO) supersession of CPD’s operations in March 2025. The investigation found that Clark Township and CPD instituted a variety of discriminatory policing practices at the behest of the longtime former Mayor of Clark, Salvatore Bonaccorso, and CPD leadership.

The complaint explains that, prior to UCPO’s supersession of CPD’s operations in July 2020, leadership in Clark Township and CPD leadership expressly instructed officers to keep Black people out of Clark and directed officers to engage in policing practices that were designed to accomplish exactly that. The complaint alleges that former Mayor Bonaccorso directed CPD leadership to engage in discriminatory policing to “keep chasing the spooks out of town,” using a racial slur to refer to Black people. And CPD then implemented a variety of practices designed to achieve that outcome.

“Elected officials and law enforcement leaders must treat every single person, no matter their race or national origin, with dignity and respect. That’s the bare minimum. But for many years before the Union County Prosecutor’s Office took over operations in 2020, leadership in Clark Township and the Clark Police Department completely and utterly failed to meet that basic obligation,” said Attorney General Platkin. “Through overt racial animus and discriminatory policing practices, Clark violated New Jersey’s civil rights laws and the New Jersey Constitution. While we have already taken substantial steps to address these issues, today’s complaint gives voice to the many New Jerseyans who have suffered discrimination in Clark and will ensure that Clark’s leadership never allows it to happen again.”

The complaint filed today is the latest step in ongoing efforts to address allegations of misconduct in Clark Township and CPD. In July 2020, the Union County Prosecutor’s Office (UCPO) assumed control via supersession of the police department’s operations, which continued until March 2025. In November 2023, the Office of the Attorney General released a public report following UCPO’s and the Office of Public Integrity and Accountability’s (OPIA) investigation into alleged criminal and administrative misconduct by township and CPD leadership. That report referred allegations of bias in policing to DCR. And in March 2025, after supersession concluded, Attorney General Platkin established a state law enforcement monitorship of CPD, which is led by the Department of Law and Public Safety’s Office of Policing Strategy and Innovation.

The complaint alleges through detailed expert statistical analysis that Black and Hispanic drivers were stopped and searched at far higher rates than white drivers prior to UCPO’s supersession. While some of these racial disparities—driven by ingrained policing practices—persisted to some extent even after UCPO’s supersession of CPD in 2020, the data from 2020 to 2024 do reveal some notable changes and improvements in policing practices that coincide with the reduction of some of these racial disparities.

The complaint explains that, at the behest of former Mayor Bonaccorso and CPD leadership, CPD established and enforced a variety of policing practices that resulted in discriminatory policing and harassment. They established and enforced quotas for motor vehicle enforcement actions. And in connection with that quota system and the directive from Township leadership to keep Black motorists out of Clark, CPD leadership implemented at least three practices that resulted in discriminatory policing and harassment: (1) focusing motor vehicle enforcement on roadways connecting Clark to the Garden State Parkway and to neighboring Rahway and Linden, which have much larger Black and Hispanic populations; (2) prioritizing the policing of low-level administrative and equipment violations over moving violations more directly related to traffic safety; and (3) using false allegations concerning the odor of marijuana as a basis to search vehicles.

“New Jersey has some of the nation’s strongest civil rights laws, but for years leadership in Clark brazenly violated the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination and violated individuals’ Constitutional rights,” said DCR Director Yolanda N. Melville. “We cannot and will not allow the repugnant behavior of public officials in Clark Township and the unlawful practices that the Clark Police Department engaged in for years.”

The complaint offers detailed expert statistical analysis demonstrating that CPD policed Black and other non-white motorists very differently than they policed white motorists.

Among other things, while Black and Hispanic residents make up less than 11% of Clark’s population, CPD’s vehicle stop data from 2015 to 2020 indicate that, of the stops for which the driver’s race was recorded, over 37% of the drivers stopped by CPD were Black or Hispanic, and over 53% of the drivers stopped by CPD outside of Clark’s boundaries were Black or Hispanic.

CPD’s vehicle search data also reflect substantial statistical disparities: from 2015 to 2020, of stops for which the driver’s race was recorded, CPD searched Black and Hispanic drivers, respectively, at rates 3.7 times and 2.2 times higher than white drivers.

Ultimately, the complaint alleges that Clark and CPD subjected Black motorists and other motorists perceived as non-white to disproportionate motor vehicle enforcement when compared to white motorists in violation of the LAD. The LAD makes it unlawful for a place of public accommodation or its employees to discriminate against any person based on actual or perceived race, color, national origin, or other protected characteristics. The LAD also prohibits certain practices and policies that disproportionately affect individuals of one race, color, national origin, or other protected characteristics.

The complaint alleges that Clark’s and CPD’s discriminatory conduct was aided and abetted by leadership within the Township with oversight and management responsibilities over CPD, including former Clark Mayor Bonaccorso, former Chief of Police Pedro Matos, and Police Director Patrick Grady, all named defendants in the complaint.

The State seeks, among other things, an injunction stopping Clark Township and the Clark Police Department from “from discriminating against individuals based on their actual or perceived race, color, ancestry, national origin, or nationality in violation the LAD”; the monitoring of Clark and CPD by the Division on Civil Rights; and that Clark and CPD pay damages to victims of their discriminatory policing practices and policies.

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DCR is represented in this matter by Deputy Attorneys General Shefali Saxena, Michelle Kostyack, Surinder Aggarwal, and Nancy Trasande under the supervision of Assistant Attorney General Mayur P. Saxena and Deputy Director Sara M. Gregory of the Division of Law’s Affirmative Civil Enforcement Practice Group. DCR’s investigation was conducted by Deputy Associate Director Danielle Thorne, Legal Specialists Katrina Tattoli, Lilly Hecht, Jerry Santer, Investigators Jason Arce and Shay Kostin, and Honors Attorney Samantha Seltzer, under the supervision of Associate Director Malcolm Peyton-Cook.

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Anyone with information about discrimination by Clark Police Department can contact DCR's Affirmative Enforcement Unit at AffirmativeEnforcement@njcivilrights.gov.

The New Jersey Division on Civil Rights (DCR) is the state agency responsible for preventing and eliminating discrimination and bias-based harassment in employment, housing, and places of public accommodation (e.g., places open to the public like courts, schools, businesses, hospitals). DCR enforces the LAD, the New Jersey Family Leave Act, and the Fair Chance in Housing Act.

To find out more information or to file a complaint, visit www.njcivilrights.gov.