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Department profile · Union County

Berkeley Heights Police Department

Reported as: Berkeley Heights PDMunicipal police

Jurisdiction context

Not a civil service jurisdiction

This department is not among the NJCSC Appendix A jurisdictions, so major discipline here follows a different statutory track (generally N.J.S.A. 40A:14 for municipal police), with appeals that usually go to the Superior Court rather than the Civil Service Commission.

See the context on non-civil-service departments.

Reflects the NJCSC Appendix A roster as of 2026-07-04. Context only, not legal advice.

In brief

Berkeley Heights Police Department, in Union County, named 11 officers in internal affairs cases in 2025 and reported 13 investigations, a rate of 118.2 per 100 officers for the municipal police department. The Union County median is 137 and the statewide municipal median is 125.9. A department above the median may be seeing more misconduct or may simply be writing more of its complaints into the record. Of the 13 investigations detailed for 2025, 6 reported sustained complaints. Other Departmental Rule Violation was the leading allegation category, ahead of Insubordination/Disobeying An Order and False Documentation/Falsifying A Report (Non-Criminal).

One major discipline record appears in the 2020-2025 releases, from 2024. Berkeley Heights received a B on the report card, at the 34th percentile among 171 peers in the 15-29 officers group, a medium-confidence grade.

Written by this site strictly from the figures on this page; every number is cited below.

Officers named in IA cases, 2025

11[1]

Distinct officers in that year's IA investigations, not total staffing

IA investigations, 2025

13[1]

Incidents, 2025

12[1]

Major discipline records

1

All years, 2020-2025

Staffing

As reported by the department to the FBI's Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) census, full-time personnel as of October 31 each year. This is a different measurement from the "officers named in IA cases" figure above; see the methodology.

Sworn officers, 2025

26[6]

64 years reported

26 sworn officers in 2025, up from 17 in 1961 (+53%).
Yearsworn officers
196117
196217
196318
196418
196518
196619
1967not reported
196821
196923
197024
197126
197226
197325
197427
197527
197627
197726
197827
197927
198027
198126
198224
198323
198423
198524
198626
198726
198826
198925
199025
199125
199225
199326
199426
199525
199626
199726
199826
199926
200026
200125
200227
200326
200426
200525
200626
200727
200827
200926
201024
201124
201224
201325
201423
201524
201625
201726
201827
201927
202027
202129
202229
202327
202426
202526

Civilian employees, 2025

1[7]

0.04 per sworn officer

Female sworn officers, 2025

2[8]

7.7% of sworn officers

Officers per 1,000 residents, 2025

1.75[9]

Municipal departments only

AnalysisComputed by this site from LEE reported totals; not an official statistic.

How Berkeley Heights Police Department's sworn staffing compares with its real peer group (same agency type, similar size band), not an assumed bell curve.

Peer group: Municipal police, 15-29 officers (n=166)

Sworn officers: Municipal police, 15-29 officers
RangeAgencies
14–1617
16–1820
18–2027
20–2217
22–2426
24–2624
26–2816
28–3019

Berkeley Heights Police Department: 26 sworn officers: 81st percentile among Municipal police, 15-29 officers (n=166).

The match between this FBI record and this department is this site's inference, not a certified mapping. If it is wrong, we will remove it: corrections.

Officer pay and school-staff pay

County comparison

A separate dataset from the discipline records above: NJ Treasury pension salaries as of March 31, 2026, for the 26 active Berkeley Heights Police Department officers in the file.

Median officer salary

$124,197[2]

26 active officers

Median local school staff

$89,321

BERKELEY HEIGHTS BD OF ED, 297 TPAF members

Against the local district

1.39x

Median officer to median local school staff

Against the county

1.39x

Median officer to Union County school-staff median

AnalysisEvery ratio here is computed by this site from as-reported pensionable salaries. The local school figure comes from the pension employer "BERKELEY HEIGHTS BD OF ED", linked to this municipality only because exactly one district in the county resolves to it. A pay comparison is not a statement about either budget. The full county comparison, including the distribution and the tenure-adjusted figure, is on the Union County pay page.

Military surplus equipment (1033 program)

No 1033 transfers recorded. No surplus-equipment transfers appear for this agency under a high-confidence name match in the Defense Logistics Agency's file as of 2026-06-30. That can mean the agency received nothing through the program, or that a recipient name in the federal file did not confidently match this department. See the methodology for how the match is made, or the statewide 1033 overview for how the program spreads across New Jersey.

Internal affairs investigations by year

counts

Internal affairs investigations reported by Berkeley Heights Police Department, by year
Categorycounts
202111
20225
20235
202410
202513

Incidents

12 in 2025

Internal affairs incidents reported by Berkeley Heights Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20217
20225
20234
20249
202512

Officers on IA rows

12 in 2025

Officers listed on the officer-level internal affairs rows for Berkeley Heights Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
2021not reported
2022not reported
2023not reported
202410
202512
Analysis

Computed by this site from the two figures the agency reports each year. Not a misconduct rate: it describes how an agency resolved what it investigated.

share of total · 5 reported years

Share of internal affairs investigations sustained by Berkeley Heights Police Department, by year
Yearshare of total
20210
202260
20230
202440
202546.154

Statewide, 19.5 percent of investigations reported a sustained complaint in 2025. How dispositions break down statewide.

Complaint mix, 2025

Most serious allegation per investigation, as categorized by the reporting agency. Officer-level rows list 12 officers involved.

Most serious allegation

Most serious allegations reported by Berkeley Heights Police Department, 2025
Other Departmental Rule Violation10
Insubordination/Disobeying An Order1
False Documentation/Falsifying A Report (Non-Criminal)1
Excessive Force1
AdministrativeConduct / dutyRights / integrityViolence / criminal

Statewide category pages: Other Departmental Rule Violation · Insubordination/Disobeying An Order · False Documentation/Falsifying A Report (Non-Criminal) · Excessive Force

Internal disposition

Internal dispositions reported by Berkeley Heights Police Department, 2025
Sustained6
Unfounded4
Not Sustained2
Administratively Closed1

Allegations by year, 2021 to 2025

AnalysisRanked and folded by this site. The counts inside each panel are as reported.

Other Departmental Rule Violation

30 of 44

Other Departmental Rule Violation allegations reported by Berkeley Heights Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20218
20224
20234
20244
202510

Demeanor

9 of 44

Demeanor allegations reported by Berkeley Heights Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20213
20221
20231
20244
20250

False Documentation/Falsifying A Report (Non-Criminal)

2 of 44

False Documentation/Falsifying A Report (Non-Criminal) allegations reported by Berkeley Heights Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20210
20220
20230
20241
20251

Differential Treatment

1 of 44

Differential Treatment allegations reported by Berkeley Heights Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20210
20220
20230
20241
20250

Other (2 categories)

2 of 44

Other (2 categories) allegations reported by Berkeley Heights Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20210
20220
20230
20240
20252

Against peers, 2025

How this grade was built →
Internal affairs investigations per 100 IA-investigated officers, 2025 (investigations per 100 IA-investigated officers)
Berkeley Heights Police Department118.2
County median, municipal police (23)137.0
NJ median, municipal police (445)125.9

Investigations per 100 officers named in that year's IA investigations (the Attorney General's own "Number of Officers" field, a distinct-officer count drawn from the IA case data itself, not a department headcount). A higher number is ambiguous on its own: it can reflect more misconduct, or a stronger internal reporting culture. Medians are computed within the same agency type only.

AnalysisA second, independent rate using FBI-reported staffing instead.

13 investigations reported for 2025[1] ÷ 26 sworn officers the department reported to the FBI for 2025[21] = 50.0 per 100 FBI-reported sworn officers. This is a genuinely different denominator from the rate above, not a correction of it; the two should not be added or averaged together. See the methodology for why these two officer counts diverge.

Report card

Grade B: Second-lowest fifth

On reported IA volume and discipline severity; see methodology

Combined standing
34th percentile of 171 peers
Confidence
Medium confidence
  • small agency; per-officer rates swing widely on a handful of cases

Where this agency falls among its peers

The actual spread of discipline severity across Berkeley Heights Police Department's real peer group, not an assumed bell curve. If the group is skewed, it is shown skewed.

Peer group: Municipal police, 15-29 officers (n=171)

Discipline severity: Municipal police, 15-29 officers
RangeAgencies
0–50120
50–10024
100–15015
150–2007
200–2503
250–3002

Berkeley Heights Police Department: 26.316 severity-weighted discipline per 100 IA-investigated officers: 56th percentile among Municipal police, 15-29 officers (n=171).

How the grade is built

Three components, each a percentile within the peer group. The combined standing is their weighted mean, re-ranked among peers; the grade is the fifth of the peer group it lands in.

IA volumeweight 40%

42nd percentileof 171 peers

115.3 investigations per 100 officers (multi-year mean)

Internal affairs investigations per 100 reported officers, averaged over the years where the agency reported both figures.

Discipline severityweight 40%

56th percentileof 171 peers

26.3 severity-weighted discipline per 100 officers, 2020-2025

Major discipline records weighted by sanction (termination 4, demotion 3, suspension 2, other 1) per 100 officers.

Allegation severityweight 20%

4th percentileof 171 peers

1.43 mean severity tier (1 low - 4 critical)

Mean severity tier of IA allegations across 2021-2025, using the published tier map; unknown values excluded.

What this grade can and can't tell you

  • The underlying data is self-reported by agencies, one yearly snapshot at a time.
  • Allegations are not findings; many complaints end unfounded, exonerated, or not sustained.
  • There is no arrest or call-volume denominator in this data, so nothing here is a per-capita misconduct rate. A genuinely independent staffing-based rate, sourced from the FBI rather than this grade's own data, appears above when available. It is a different measurement, not a more accurate version of the grade.
  • A higher internal affairs volume is ambiguous: it can indicate more misconduct, or a more robust oversight and reporting culture. The grade weighs it anyway, because volume is what the record offers; that choice is published, not hidden.
  • The grade is one lens. The records it reads are on this page above.

Where this agency ranks

AnalysisRankings compare agencies of the same type only, on figures as reported. A high rank is reported volume, not a verdict.[22] How each metric is defined.
This agency's rank on each metric, among agencies of the same type
MetricValueRank
IA per 100 investigated officers2025118.2276th of 445 municipal police
IA investigations202513172nd of 445 municipal police
IA incidents202512149th of 445 municipal police
Major discipline2020-20251184th of 282 municipal police
Sworn per 1,000 residentslatest reported census year1.75383rd of 460 municipal police
Police pay vs school paypension snapshot 2026-03-311.39x209th of 415 municipal police
OPRA requests recordedOPRAmachine, 2017 to present14303rd of 458 municipal police

Major discipline records

0 major discipline records in 2025, holding roughly steady.
Yearmajor discipline records
20200
20210
20220
20230
20241
20250

0 major discipline records in 2025, holding roughly steady.

Major discipline records reported by Berkeley Heights Police Department, 2020-2025
YearOfficerRankSanction as reportedSrc
2024Jason MassiminoFMR. ChiefSeparated while IA pending[23]

Every name links to the officer's record page with the agency's full synopsis and citation.

Public records requests

Records requests about this department filed through OPRAmachine, an independent site that files Open Public Records Act requests in public and publishes the responses.[3] This is a third-party, user-generated source, separate in origin from the Attorney General records elsewhere on this page.

Current as of 12 July 2026. These figures are a point-in-time snapshot and do not update: requests filed to OPRAmachine after that date do not appear here. For live activity, see this body on OPRAmachine.

This department has no separate listing on OPRAmachine. Records requests for it are handled through Berkeley Heights Township, the municipal records custodian, which also fields requests about permits, property, and code enforcement. Only the 14 requests whose subject line indicates it concerns the police department are counted below. The other 90 filed to Berkeley Heights Township are about something else and are not shown.

Police-related requests

14[3]

Identified by subject line, of 104 filed to Berkeley Heights Township

Most recent request

September 2025[3]

First recorded May 2020

Awaiting a response

8[3]

Requests with no response recorded yet

What happened to those requests

Statuses as recorded on OPRAmachine. They are set by the person who filed the request when they classify what came back, not by the agency and not by any court. They describe the fate of a records request and nothing else.

Recorded outcomes of police-related records requests to Berkeley Heights Township (requests)
Awaiting agency response8
Requester reported success3
Agency said records not held2
Request refused1

Recent requests

The 12 most recent police-related requests to Berkeley Heights Township, by date and recorded status. Each was written by a member of the public. A request is a question somebody asked. It is not a finding, not an allegation this site makes, and not evidence that anything happened.

  1. 2025-09-15Agency said records not held
  2. 2025-08-21Agency said records not held
  3. 2024-11-22Awaiting agency response
  4. 2024-10-28Requester reported success
  5. 2023-08-31Awaiting agency response
  6. 2023-08-31Awaiting agency response
  7. 2023-08-15Request refused
  8. 2021-04-23Requester reported success
  9. 2021-04-20Requester reported success
  10. 2020-05-28Awaiting agency response
  11. 2020-05-28Awaiting agency response
  12. 2020-05-27Awaiting agency response
Show what each request asked for, as the requester wrote it

These titles are quoted from OPRAmachine exactly as the requester typed them. They are the requester's words, not this site's, and some describe what the requester believed or suspected. Nothing here has been established as fact.

File your own records request

Anyone can request records from this municipality under the Open Public Records Act. This link opens a request on OPRAmachine, pre-filled with a neutral starting point you can edit or replace before you send it. The request, and any response, will be published there.

File an OPRA request about this department

See every request filed to Berkeley Heights Township on OPRAmachine.

What this section can and can't tell you

  • A request is not a finding. Every entry records what a member of the public asked for. None of it establishes that an agency did anything, and none of it is an allegation this site is making.
  • Statuses come from the requester, not the agency. On OPRAmachine the person who filed the request classifies the response they got, so “successful” means they said they got what they asked for. It is not the agency's word and not an adjudication.
  • Request volume is not a measure of misconduct. A long list usually reflects public interest, local journalism, or one determined requester. A short list usually means few people have asked.
  • This covers OPRAmachine only. Most OPRA requests in New Jersey are filed directly with agencies and never appear here, so this is a floor, not a total.
  • It is frozen at 12 July 2026. The figures come from a snapshot of OPRAmachine taken on that date and nothing refreshes them, so anything filed since is missing. Treat every number here as a lower bound that is only getting further out of date.
  • The count is an undercount, by design. Requests to Berkeley Heights Township are sorted by subject line, because that custodian also handles permits, property, and code enforcement. A request that is genuinely about the police but carries a vague subject line, and many do read only “OPRA Request,” is not counted here. The sorting is this site's own reading of the request titles, not a fact from the source, and it is deliberately cautious: it would rather miss a police request than show you somebody's building permit.

The match between this OPRAmachine body and this department is this site's inference, not a certified mapping. If it is wrong, we will remove it: corrections.

Questions and answers

What is a summary of Berkeley Heights Police Department's internal affairs and discipline record?

Berkeley Heights Police Department, in Union County, named 11 officers in internal affairs cases in 2025 and reported 13 investigations, a rate of 118.2 per 100 officers for the municipal police department. The Union County median is 137 and the statewide municipal median is 125.9. A department above the median may be seeing more misconduct or may simply be writing more of its complaints into the record. Of the 13 investigations detailed for 2025, 6 reported sustained complaints. Other Departmental Rule Violation was the leading allegation category, ahead of Insubordination/Disobeying An Order and False Documentation/Falsifying A Report (Non-Criminal). One major discipline record appears in the 2020-2025 releases, from 2024. Berkeley Heights received a B on the report card, at the 34th percentile among 171 peers in the 15-29 officers group, a medium-confidence grade.

How many internal affairs investigations did Berkeley Heights Police Department report in 2025?

Berkeley Heights Police Department reported 13 internal affairs investigations in 2025, according to New Jersey Attorney General data. 11 distinct officers were named in that year's IA investigations.

How many major discipline records does Berkeley Heights Police Department have?

Berkeley Heights Police Department has 1 major discipline records in the Attorney General's 2020-2025 releases, of which 0 were terminations. These are final, adjudicated actions, not allegations.

How many officers does Berkeley Heights Police Department have?

Berkeley Heights Police Department reported 26 full-time sworn officers to the FBI's Law Enforcement Employees census for 2025, 7.7% of them female. That is 1.75 sworn officers per 1,000 residents. This is a different measurement from the "officers named in IA cases" figure elsewhere on this page, which counts distinct officers in that year's internal affairs investigations, not total staffing.

What does Berkeley Heights Police Department pay its officers compared with local school staff?

The median pensionable salary for the 26 active Berkeley Heights Police Department officers in the NJ Treasury pension file is $124,197. The median for the 297 TPAF-enrolled staff at BERKELEY HEIGHTS BD OF ED is $89,321, a ratio of 1.39x. Against the Union County school-staff median the ratio is 1.39x. These are pensionable base salaries: they exclude overtime, stipends, longevity and leave payouts for both groups, and a school contract year and a police work year are different lengths. TPAF covers certificated school staff, not only classroom teachers.

Sources

  1. [1]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 2521. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
  2. [2]YourMoney Active Pension Members (PFRS/SPRS subset) and YourMoney Active Pension Members (TPAF subset, names removed). New Jersey Department of the Treasury. Both snapshots as of March 31, 2026. Derived from the public YourMoney Active Pension Members dataset, https://www.yourmoney.nj.gov/. Figures are computed by this site from as-reported pensionable salaries; the row-by-row account of what entered each figure is published at /data/pay-comparison.json. ↩
  3. [3]Records-request activity for Berkeley Heights Township. OPRAmachine (opramachine.com), an independent public-records platform. Publicly visible requests only. Point-in-time snapshot taken 2026-07-12 from a database export dated 2026-07-11. Not updated after that date; see opramachine.com for current activity. ↩
  4. [4]New Jersey Internal Affairs Officers, 2024-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Officer counts summed across every Berkeley Heights PD row. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
  5. [5]New Jersey county boundaries. New Jersey Office of Information Technology, Office of GIS (NJOGIS). NJ_Counties_3857 (FeatureServer layer 0), https://services2.arcgis.com/XVOqAjTOJ5P6ngMu/arcgis/rest/services/NJ_Counties_3857/FeatureServer/0. 2020 boundary delineation. Retrieved 2026-07-27. Boundaries are generalized for display. This data set is not a survey document and must not be used as such. The polygons do not represent legal boundaries.
  6. [6]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8601. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/. ↩
  7. [7]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8601. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/. ↩
  8. [8]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8601. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/. ↩
  9. [9]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8601. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/. ↩
  10. [10]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 474. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
  11. [11]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1497. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
  12. [12]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 2004. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
  13. [13]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 982. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
  14. [14]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 2521. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
  15. [15]New Jersey Internal Affairs Investigations, 2024-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. Aggregated from every Berkeley Heights PD row for 2025; row 1 is the header. ↩
  16. [16]New Jersey Internal Affairs Data Download, 2021-2023. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. Aggregated from every Berkeley Heights PD row for 2021. ↩
  17. [17]New Jersey Internal Affairs Data Download, 2021-2023. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. Aggregated from every Berkeley Heights PD row for 2022. ↩
  18. [18]New Jersey Internal Affairs Data Download, 2021-2023. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. Aggregated from every Berkeley Heights PD row for 2023. ↩
  19. [19]New Jersey Internal Affairs Investigations, 2024-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. Aggregated from every Berkeley Heights PD row for 2024. ↩
  20. [20]New Jersey Internal Affairs Investigations, 2024-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. Aggregated from every Berkeley Heights PD row for 2025. ↩
  21. [21]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8601. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/. ↩
  22. [22]Ranks computed by this site over the Attorney General internal affairs agency totals and major discipline releases, within agency type. Each ranking page lists every agency and its source rows. ↩
  23. [23]New Jersey Major Discipline Data, 2020-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Major Discipline Data", row 1432. Snapshot retrieved 2026-07-03. ↩