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Department profile · Somerset County

Bridgewater Township Police Department

Reported as: Bridgewater Twp 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

Bridgewater Township Police Department is a municipal police agency in Somerset County. It named 16 officers in internal affairs cases in 2025 across 23 investigations, a rate of 143.8 per 100 officers that edged past the Somerset County median of 141.7 and the 125.9 municipal median. The gap admits two readings: more misconduct, or a department that puts more of its complaints on paper. Of the 23 investigations detailed for 2025, 5 reported sustained complaints. Other Departmental Rule Violation was the leading allegation category, ahead of Demeanor and False Documentation/Falsifying A Report (Non-Criminal).

Three major discipline records appear across the 2020-2025 releases, from 2020, 2021 and 2024. Bridgewater Twp received a D on the report card, at the 70th percentile among 93 peers in the 60+ 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

16[1]

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

IA investigations, 2025

23[1]

Incidents, 2025

20[1]

Major discipline records

3

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

79[6]

57 years reported

79 sworn officers in 2025, up from 29 in 1969 (+172%).
Yearsworn officers
196929
197032
197131
197232
197337
197439
197538
197640
197745
197845
197945
198048
198147
198247
198348
198446
198548
198647
198749
198855
198959
199059
199153
199257
199358
199463
199564
199662
199766
199867
199975
200074
200172
200272
200378
200479
200577
200677
200778
200877
200977
201075
201174
201272
201368
201474
201572
201674
201779
201874
201979
202073
202174
202274
202380
202479
202579

Civilian employees, 2025

9[7]

0.11 per sworn officer

Female sworn officers, 2025

3[8]

3.8% of sworn officers

Officers per 1,000 residents, 2025

1.67[9]

Municipal departments only

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

How Bridgewater Township 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, 60+ officers (n=92)

Sworn officers: Municipal police, 60+ officers
RangeAgencies
0–20084
200–4005
400–6001
600–8001
800–10000
1000–12001

Bridgewater Township Police Department: 79 sworn officers: 33rd percentile among Municipal police, 60+ officers (n=92).

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 78 active Bridgewater Township Police Department officers in the file.

Median officer salary

$115,632[2]

78 active officers

Median school staff

$86,950

Somerset County, all TPAF members

Against the county

1.33x

Median officer to Somerset County school-staff median

AnalysisEvery ratio here is computed by this site from as-reported pensionable salaries. 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 Somerset 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 Bridgewater Township Police Department, by year
Categorycounts
202110
20229
202322
202417
202523

Incidents

20 in 2025

Internal affairs incidents reported by Bridgewater Township Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
202110
20227
202313
202412
202520

Officers on IA rows

23 in 2025

Officers listed on the officer-level internal affairs rows for Bridgewater Township Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
2021not reported
2022not reported
2023not reported
202417
202523
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 Bridgewater Township Police Department, by year
Yearshare of total
20210
202222.222
202318.182
20245.882
202521.739

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 23 officers involved.

Most serious allegation

Most serious allegations reported by Bridgewater Township Police Department, 2025
Other Departmental Rule Violation13
Demeanor3
False Documentation/Falsifying A Report (Non-Criminal)2
Improper Arrest1
Conduct Unbecoming/Discredit To The Agency1
Other Criminal Violation1
Insubordination/Disobeying An Order1
Vehicular Pursuit Policy Violation1
AdministrativeConduct / dutyRights / integrityViolence / criminal

Statewide category pages: Other Departmental Rule Violation · Demeanor · False Documentation/Falsifying A Report (Non-Criminal) · Improper Arrest · Conduct Unbecoming/Discredit To The Agency · Other Criminal Violation · Insubordination/Disobeying An Order · Vehicular Pursuit Policy Violation

Internal disposition

Internal dispositions reported by Bridgewater Township Police Department, 2025
Unfounded11
Sustained5
not provided4
Administratively Closed1
Not Sustained1
Exonerated1

Allegations by year, 2021 to 2025

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

Other Departmental Rule Violation

29 of 81

Other Departmental Rule Violation allegations reported by Bridgewater Township Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20215
20220
20235
20246
202513

Differential Treatment

11 of 81

Differential Treatment allegations reported by Bridgewater Township Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20213
20223
20233
20242
20250

Demeanor

9 of 81

Demeanor allegations reported by Bridgewater Township Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20211
20220
20232
20243
20253

Excessive Force

6 of 81

Excessive Force allegations reported by Bridgewater Township Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20210
20220
20234
20242
20250

Other (15 categories)

26 of 81

Other (15 categories) allegations reported by Bridgewater Township Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20211
20226
20238
20244
20257

Against peers, 2025

How this grade was built →
Internal affairs investigations per 100 IA-investigated officers, 2025 (investigations per 100 IA-investigated officers)
Bridgewater Township Police Department143.8
County median, municipal police (18)141.7
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.

23 investigations reported for 2025[1] ÷ 79 sworn officers the department reported to the FBI for 2025[21] = 29.1 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 D: Second-highest fifth

On reported IA volume and discipline severity; see methodology

Combined standing
70th percentile of 93 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 Bridgewater Township Police Department's real peer group, not an assumed bell curve. If the group is skewed, it is shown skewed.

Peer group: Municipal police, 60+ officers (n=93)

Discipline severity: Municipal police, 60+ officers
RangeAgencies
0–5066
50–10025
100–1501
150–2001

Bridgewater Township Police Department: 48.387 severity-weighted discipline per 100 IA-investigated officers: 66th percentile among Municipal police, 60+ officers (n=93).

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%

45th percentileof 93 peers

130.1 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%

66th percentileof 93 peers

48.4 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%

72nd percentileof 93 peers

2.17 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 officers2025143.8143rd of 445 municipal police
IA investigations202523101st of 445 municipal police
IA incidents20252089th of 445 municipal police
Major discipline2020-2025387th of 282 municipal police
Sworn per 1,000 residentslatest reported census year1.67406th of 460 municipal police
Police pay vs school paypension snapshot 2026-03-311.33x239th of 415 municipal police
OPRA requests recordedOPRAmachine, 2017 to present3179th of 458 municipal police

Major discipline records

0 major discipline records in 2025, down from 1 in 2020 (-100%).
Yearmajor discipline records
20201
20211
20220
20230
20241
20250

0 major discipline records in 2025, down from 1 in 2020 (-100%).

Major discipline records reported by Bridgewater Township Police Department, 2020-2025
YearOfficerRankSanction as reportedSrc
2024Matthew HoelzelOfficerSuspended 10 days[23]
2021Brian SchubertOfficerSuspended 180 days[24]
2020Anne AlosiOfficerSuspended 180 days[25]

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 Bridgewater Township, the municipal records custodian, which also fields requests about permits, property, and code enforcement. Only the 31 requests whose subject line indicates it concerns the police department are counted below. The other 210 filed to Bridgewater Township are about something else and are not shown.

Police-related requests

31[3]

Identified by subject line, of 241 filed to Bridgewater Township

Most recent request

June 2026[3]

First recorded January 2020

Awaiting a response

20[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 Bridgewater Township (requests)
Awaiting agency response20
Requester reported success6
Request refused3
Agency said records not held1
Requester reported partial success1

Recent requests

The 12 most recent police-related requests to Bridgewater 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. 2026-06-09Awaiting agency response
  2. 2026-04-27Requester reported success
  3. 2026-03-30Requester reported success
  4. 2025-12-08Request refused
  5. 2025-08-16Awaiting agency response
  6. 2025-04-29Awaiting agency response
  7. 2025-02-13Requester reported success
  8. 2024-11-27Awaiting agency response
  9. 2024-11-25Awaiting agency response
  10. 2024-10-11Awaiting agency response
  11. 2024-09-28Request refused
  12. 2024-08-31Awaiting 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 Bridgewater 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 Bridgewater 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 Bridgewater Township Police Department's internal affairs and discipline record?

Bridgewater Township Police Department is a municipal police agency in Somerset County. It named 16 officers in internal affairs cases in 2025 across 23 investigations, a rate of 143.8 per 100 officers that edged past the Somerset County median of 141.7 and the 125.9 municipal median. The gap admits two readings: more misconduct, or a department that puts more of its complaints on paper. Of the 23 investigations detailed for 2025, 5 reported sustained complaints. Other Departmental Rule Violation was the leading allegation category, ahead of Demeanor and False Documentation/Falsifying A Report (Non-Criminal). Three major discipline records appear across the 2020-2025 releases, from 2020, 2021 and 2024. Bridgewater Twp received a D on the report card, at the 70th percentile among 93 peers in the 60+ officers group, a medium-confidence grade.

How many internal affairs investigations did Bridgewater Township Police Department report in 2025?

Bridgewater Township Police Department reported 23 internal affairs investigations in 2025, according to New Jersey Attorney General data. 16 distinct officers were named in that year's IA investigations.

How many major discipline records does Bridgewater Township Police Department have?

Bridgewater Township Police Department has 3 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 Bridgewater Township Police Department have?

Bridgewater Township Police Department reported 79 full-time sworn officers to the FBI's Law Enforcement Employees census for 2025, 3.8% of them female. That is 1.67 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 Bridgewater Township Police Department pay its officers compared with local school staff?

The median pensionable salary for the 78 active Bridgewater Township Police Department officers in the NJ Treasury pension file is $115,632. Against the Somerset County school-staff median the ratio is 1.33x. 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 2477. 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 Bridgewater 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 Bridgewater Twp 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 8572. 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 8572. 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 8572. 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 8572. 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 438. 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 1458. 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 1966. 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 942. 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 2477. 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 Bridgewater Twp 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 Bridgewater Twp 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 Bridgewater Twp 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 Bridgewater Twp 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 Bridgewater Twp 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 Bridgewater Twp PD row for 2025. ↩
  21. [21]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8572. 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 1267. Snapshot retrieved 2026-07-03. ↩
  24. [24]New Jersey Major Discipline Data, 2020-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Major Discipline Data", row 2662. Snapshot retrieved 2026-07-03. ↩
  25. [25]New Jersey Major Discipline Data, 2020-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Major Discipline Data", row 2926. Snapshot retrieved 2026-07-03. ↩