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Department profile · Burlington County

Burlington City Police Department

Reported as: Burlington City PDMunicipal police

Jurisdiction context

Civil service jurisdiction

Discipline at this department is governed by the Title 4A civil service framework, matched to Burlington City on the New Jersey Civil Service Commission roster.

Read how the process works or the Title 4A glossary. Browse NJCSNavigator’s civil service jurisdiction directory for the full local-jurisdiction roster.

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

In brief

Burlington City Police Department is a municipal police agency in Burlington County. In 2025 it named 11 officers in internal affairs cases and recorded 11 investigations, a rate of 100 per 100 officers, under the Burlington County median of 125 and the 125.9 municipal median. A lower rate can mean fewer complaints or a narrower record of them. Of the 11 investigations detailed for 2025, 1 reported sustained complaints. BWC/MVR Violation was the leading allegation category, followed by Differential Treatment and Demeanor.

One major discipline record appears in the 2020-2025 releases, from 2022. Burlington City received a D on the report card, at the 78th percentile among 110 peers in the 30-59 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

11[1]

Incidents, 2025

7[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

32[7]

66 years reported

32 sworn officers in 2025, up from 27 in 1960 (+19%).
Yearsworn officers
196027
196127
196226
196327
196426
196524
196622
196725
196827
196925
197028
197130
197229
197328
197429
197531
197631
197733
197833
197935
198035
198133
198235
198335
198435
198535
198634
198736
198833
198931
199029
199134
199231
199331
199430
199531
199631
199731
199829
199929
200029
200131
200231
200331
200430
200533
200632
200736
200836
200936
201032
201131
201233
201331
201432
201530
201630
201732
201833
201933
202033
202131
202234
202334
202434
202532

Civilian employees, 2025

5[8]

0.16 per sworn officer

Female sworn officers, 2025

3[9]

9.4% of sworn officers

Officers per 1,000 residents, 2025

3.12[10]

Municipal departments only

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

How Burlington City 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, 30-59 officers (n=111)

Sworn officers: Municipal police, 30-59 officers
RangeAgencies
30–3537
35–4027
40–4516
45–5014
50–5510
55–607

Burlington City Police Department: 32 sworn officers: 14th percentile among Municipal police, 30-59 officers (n=111).

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 30 active Burlington City Police Department officers in the file.

Median officer salary

$110,874[2]

30 active officers

Median local school staff

$83,592

BURLINGTON CITY BD OF ED, 221 TPAF members

Against the local district

1.33x

Median officer to median local school staff

Against the county

1.28x

Median officer to Burlington 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 "BURLINGTON CITY 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 Burlington 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 Burlington City Police Department, by year
Categorycounts
202110
202218
202311
202442
202511

Incidents

7 in 2025

Internal affairs incidents reported by Burlington City Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20218
202214
20236
202423
20257

Officers on IA rows

11 in 2025

Officers listed on the officer-level internal affairs rows for Burlington City Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
2021not reported
2022not reported
2023not reported
202433
202511
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 Burlington City Police Department, by year
Yearshare of total
20210
20225.556
20230
2024100
20259.091

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 11 officers involved.

Most serious allegation

Most serious allegations reported by Burlington City Police Department, 2025
BWC/MVR Violation4
Differential Treatment2
Demeanor2
Other Departmental Rule Violation1
not provided1
Improper Entry1
AdministrativeConduct / dutyRights / integrityViolence / criminal

Statewide category pages: BWC/MVR Violation · Differential Treatment · Demeanor · Other Departmental Rule Violation · Improper Entry

Internal disposition

Internal dispositions reported by Burlington City Police Department, 2025
Exonerated8
Unfounded2
Sustained1

Allegations by year, 2021 to 2025

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

Differential Treatment

29 of 92

Differential Treatment allegations reported by Burlington City Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20210
20223
20230
202424
20252

Demeanor

20 of 92

Demeanor allegations reported by Burlington City Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20215
20228
20231
20244
20252

Other Departmental Rule Violation

18 of 92

Other Departmental Rule Violation allegations reported by Burlington City Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20211
20225
20239
20242
20251

BWC/MVR Violation

5 of 92

BWC/MVR Violation allegations reported by Burlington City Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20210
20220
20230
20241
20254

Other (9 categories)

20 of 92

Other (9 categories) allegations reported by Burlington City Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20214
20222
20231
202411
20252

Against peers, 2025

How this grade was built →
Internal affairs investigations per 100 IA-investigated officers, 2025 (investigations per 100 IA-investigated officers)
Burlington City Police Department100.0
County median, municipal police (31)125.0
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.

11 investigations reported for 2025[1] ÷ 32 sworn officers the department reported to the FBI for 2025[22] = 34.4 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
78th percentile of 110 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 Burlington City Police Department's real peer group, not an assumed bell curve. If the group is skewed, it is shown skewed.

Peer group: Municipal police, 30-59 officers (n=110)

Discipline severity: Municipal police, 30-59 officers
RangeAgencies
0–5073
50–10025
100–1504
150–2006
200–2501
250–3001

Burlington City Police Department: 16.667 severity-weighted discipline per 100 IA-investigated officers: 38th percentile among Municipal police, 30-59 officers (n=110).

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%

80th percentileof 110 peers

142.1 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%

38th percentileof 110 peers

16.7 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 110 peers

2.33 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.[23] How each metric is defined.
This agency's rank on each metric, among agencies of the same type
MetricValueRank
IA per 100 investigated officers2025100.0322nd of 445 municipal police
IA investigations202511199th of 445 municipal police
IA incidents20257228th of 445 municipal police
Major discipline2020-20251184th of 282 municipal police
Sworn per 1,000 residentslatest reported census year3.12111th of 460 municipal police
Police pay vs school paypension snapshot 2026-03-311.28x258th of 415 municipal police
OPRA requests recordedOPRAmachine, 2017 to present27113th of 458 municipal police

Major discipline records

0 major discipline records in 2025, holding roughly steady.
Yearmajor discipline records
20200
20210
20221
20230
20240
20250

0 major discipline records in 2025, holding roughly steady.

Major discipline records reported by Burlington City Police Department, 2020-2025
YearOfficerRankSanction as reportedSrc
2022Makenzie MurphyPtl. OfficerSuspended 40 days[24]

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

Fatal encounters recorded involving this agency

From the independent Fatal Encounters dataset, 2000-2021

In brief (written by this site from the records below)

One record in the Fatal Encounters dataset names Burlington City Police Department, in 2012. The dataset records the force on it, in its own as-recorded terms, as Gunshot. Fatal Encounters is an independent, crowdsourced journalism project that documented deaths occurring during police encounters of any kind, including vehicle pursuits, suicides in police presence, and medical emergencies. A record is not a finding of fault, and it is not a discipline record from the Attorney General data shown elsewhere on this page. The project stopped collecting in December 2021, so the dataset is frozen and the absence of later records reflects the end of collection.

Fatal Encounters is an independent, crowdsourced dataset that documented deaths during police encounters nationwide from 2000 until its collection ended in December 2021.[3] It records all deaths that occurred during a police encounter of any kind: vehicle pursuits, suicides in police presence, and medical emergencies are included alongside uses of force. A record appears here because Burlington City Police Departmentis named in the record's as-reported agency field. A listing is not a misconduct finding, and it is not connected to the Attorney General discipline records above. See the methodology. Each record links to its own page with the full as-reported details.

  • Jason T. Bunnell

    September 17, 2012 · Burlington · Highest level of force as recorded: Gunshot

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.[4] 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 Burlington City, the municipal records custodian, which also fields requests about permits, property, and code enforcement. Only the 27 requests whose subject line indicates it concerns the police department are counted below. The other 123 filed to Burlington City are about something else and are not shown.

Police-related requests

27[4]

Identified by subject line, of 150 filed to Burlington City

Most recent request

November 2025[4]

First recorded April 2020

Awaiting a response

16[4]

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 Burlington City (requests)
Awaiting agency response16
Requester reported success8
Requester reported partial success2
Request refused1

Recent requests

The 12 most recent police-related requests to Burlington City, 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. 2025-11-07Requester reported success
  2. 2025-11-07Requester reported success
  3. 2025-11-07Requester reported success
  4. 2025-11-07Requester reported success
  5. 2025-11-07Requester reported success
  6. 2025-11-07Requester reported success
  7. 2025-10-06Requester reported success
  8. 2025-04-28Awaiting agency response
  9. 2025-02-28Requester reported partial success
  10. 2024-11-28Awaiting agency response
  11. 2024-11-25Awaiting agency response
  12. 2024-11-09Awaiting 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 Burlington City 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 Burlington City 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 Burlington City Police Department's internal affairs and discipline record?

Burlington City Police Department is a municipal police agency in Burlington County. In 2025 it named 11 officers in internal affairs cases and recorded 11 investigations, a rate of 100 per 100 officers, under the Burlington County median of 125 and the 125.9 municipal median. A lower rate can mean fewer complaints or a narrower record of them. Of the 11 investigations detailed for 2025, 1 reported sustained complaints. BWC/MVR Violation was the leading allegation category, followed by Differential Treatment and Demeanor. One major discipline record appears in the 2020-2025 releases, from 2022. Burlington City received a D on the report card, at the 78th percentile among 110 peers in the 30-59 officers group, a medium-confidence grade.

How many internal affairs investigations did Burlington City Police Department report in 2025?

Burlington City Police Department reported 11 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 Burlington City Police Department have?

Burlington City 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 Burlington City Police Department have?

Burlington City Police Department reported 32 full-time sworn officers to the FBI's Law Enforcement Employees census for 2025, 9.4% of them female. That is 3.12 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.

How many deaths during police encounters are recorded for Burlington City Police Department?

The independent Fatal Encounters dataset contains 1 record naming Burlington City Police Department, from 2012 through 2012. Fatal Encounters is a crowdsourced journalism project, not a government source, and it documented deaths that occurred during police encounters of any kind. Each record links to a page showing it exactly as the project recorded it.

What does Burlington City Police Department pay its officers compared with local school staff?

The median pensionable salary for the 30 active Burlington City Police Department officers in the NJ Treasury pension file is $110,874. The median for the 221 TPAF-enrolled staff at BURLINGTON CITY BD OF ED is $83,592, a ratio of 1.33x. Against the Burlington County school-staff median the ratio is 1.28x. 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 2121. 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]Fatal Encounters, New Jersey subset. Fatal Encounters (fatalencounters.org). Fatal Encounters national dataset (2000-2021); collection ended December 2021. Retrieved 2026-07-10. https://fatalencounters.org/ ↩
  4. [4]Records-request activity for Burlington City. 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. ↩
  5. [5]New Jersey Internal Affairs Officers, 2024-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Officer counts summed across every Burlington City PD row. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
  6. [6]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.
  7. [7]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8204. 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 8204. 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 8204. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/. ↩
  10. [10]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8204. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/. ↩
  11. [11]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 91. 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 1107. 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 1619. 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 600. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
  15. [15]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 2121. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
  16. [16]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 Burlington City PD row for 2025; row 1 is the header. ↩
  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 Burlington City PD row for 2021. ↩
  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 Burlington City PD row for 2022. ↩
  19. [19]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 Burlington City PD row for 2023. ↩
  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 Burlington City PD row for 2024. ↩
  21. [21]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 Burlington City PD row for 2025. ↩
  22. [22]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8204. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/. ↩
  23. [23]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. ↩
  24. [24]New Jersey Major Discipline Data, 2020-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Major Discipline Data", row 2063. Snapshot retrieved 2026-07-03. ↩