New Jersey’s attorney general says a civil-rights lawsuit seeks court oversight, policy changes, and damages for motorists after an investigation spanning 2015 through the end of a state takeover in 2025.
NEW JERSEY — New Jersey’s attorney general and the state Division on Civil Rights have filed a lawsuit alleging that Clark Township and the Clark Police Department systematically discriminated against Black and other non-white motorists through traffic stops, searches, and enforcement tactics that investigators say were designed to deter those drivers from entering or traveling through the Union County community.
The complaint, filed in Superior Court and announced on Jan. 15, alleges violations of the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination and the New Jersey Constitution. It names former Clark Mayor Salvatore Bonaccorso, former police chief Pedro Matos, and police director Patrick Grady among the defendants accused of aiding and abetting the alleged discriminatory practices. According to the state, the investigation focused on the period from 2015 through the end of the Union County Prosecutor’s Office takeover of Clark police operations in March 2025.
Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin said the lawsuit seeks to address years of discriminatory treatment and ensure it does not happen again. “Elected officials and law enforcement leaders must treat every single person, no matter their race or national origin, with dignity and respect,” Platkin said in the state’s announcement. He alleged that, before the Union County Prosecutor’s Office stepped in during 2020, township and police leadership had completely failed that obligation through overt racial animus and discriminatory policing practices.
According to the complaint, before the supersession began in July 2020, Clark officials and police leadership explicitly instructed officers “to keep Black people out of Clark,” and the state alleges that Bonaccorso directed police leadership to engage in discriminatory policing using a racial slur for Black people. The lawsuit also claims police leaders used specific enforcement strategies to advance that goal, including concentrating traffic enforcement on roads connecting Clark to the Garden State Parkway and to neighboring Rahway and Linden, focusing on equipment and administrative violations rather than moving violations more directly tied to road safety, and using false claims about the odor of marijuana to justify vehicle searches.
The state says its case is supported by expert statistical analysis showing large racial disparities in traffic stops and searches before the 2020 takeover. According to figures highlighted in the state’s announcement, from 2015 to 2020, Clark police searched Black drivers at a rate 3.7 times higher than white drivers and searched Hispanic drivers at a rate 2.2 times higher than white drivers in stops where race was recorded. The state also says that while Black and Hispanic residents make up less than 11% of Clark’s population, stop data from 2015 to 2020 show Black or Hispanic drivers accounted for more than 37% of recorded stops and more than 53% of stops conducted outside Clark’s boundaries.
The announcement notes that some disparities continued after the 2020 takeover, but says data from 2020 to 2024 showed notable changes and improvements that coincided with reductions in some disparities. That distinction matters because the state’s case covers both the earlier alleged pattern of discriminatory policing and the period after prosecutors took over operations, when officials say conditions began to improve.
The lawsuit seeks a range of remedies, including a court injunction barring discriminatory policing, continued monitoring by the Division on Civil Rights, and damages for victims of the alleged practices. DCR Director Yolanda N. Melville said the case is meant to enforce both state civil-rights law and constitutional protections. “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,” Melville said in the state’s announcement.
The lawsuit follows years of state involvement in Clark policing. The Union County Prosecutor’s Office assumed control of the Clark Police Department in July 2020, an unusual supersession that remained in place until March 2025. In November 2023, the Office of the Attorney General released a public report tied to investigations by UCPO and the Office of Public Integrity and Accountability into alleged misconduct by township and police leadership, and referred the bias-policing allegations to DCR for further review. After the supersession ended, Platkin established a state law-enforcement monitorship of the Clark Police Department led by the Office of Policing Strategy and Innovation.
The allegations in the complaint will now be tested in court. The state’s filing sets out claims, not final findings, and Clark Township and the Clark Police Department will have the opportunity to respond. The state also said that anyone with information about discrimination by the Clark Police Department can contact the Division on Civil Rights’ Affirmative Enforcement Unit at AffirmativeEnforcement@njcivilrights.gov.