The Newark Police Division has filed the latest quarterly report with the U.S. District Court in Newark in compliance with the federal Consent Decree, which has been in effect since May 5, 2016. This is the sixth quarterly report, as required by the federal Department of Justice.
“We continue to make strides in compliance,” said Public Safety Director Anthony F. Ambrose. “We remain committed to building trust through transparency, increasing professional standards, and building partnerships with the citizen groups of Newark.”
Officials say that the highlights of the reports include:
1) Continued deployment of body-worn cameras and in-car cameras for patrol officers in all seven precincts. Training and dissemination of the cameras are complete, except for a handful of officers in administrative roles.
2) Completion of training for every member of the Newark Police Division in community-oriented policing, appropriate use of force, and proper procedure in stops, searches, and arrests.
3) Continued collaboration with the Civilian Complaint Review Board.
4) Continued use of a digital storage program, giving police easy access to all training programs, policies, and memorandums.
5) Completion of an innovative LGBTQ policy and sensitivity training, following several community meetings with members of that community.
6) Expansion of a bar code system for tracking evidence and data, and centralizing information division-wide, as well as several other digital and software upgrades.
7) The creation of a special investigative unit to review all use of force by Newark police, whether there is a complaint or not.
The status report also listed 12 new policies put into effect by the Newark Police with approval of the consent decree monitoring team, which is headed by former New Jersey Attorney General Peter Harvey.
Three other policies are in the pipeline and await final approval by the monitoring team.
The division is under the consent decree following a U.S. Department of Justice investigation, spurred by an ACLU petition, in 2010 and completed in 2014.