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Department profile · Bergen County

Fair Lawn Police Department

Reported as: Fair Lawn PDMunicipal police

Jurisdiction context

Civil service jurisdiction

Discipline at this department is governed by the Title 4A civil service framework, matched to Fair Lawn 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

Fair Lawn Police Department, a municipal police agency in Bergen County, named 11 officers in internal affairs cases in 2025 and reported 16 investigations that year. The rate of 145.5 per 100 officers ran ahead of the Bergen County median of 125.3 and the statewide municipal median of 125.9, and a higher rate is ambiguous on its face: it can point to more misconduct or to a department that records more of what comes in. Of the 16 investigations detailed for 2025, 1 reported a sustained complaint. Theft and Other Departmental Rule Violation were the leading allegation categories, with Demeanor close behind.

No major discipline records appear in the 2020-2025 releases, and the absence of records is not a finding. Fair Lawn PD received an A on the report card, at the 6th 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

11[1]

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

IA investigations, 2025

16[1]

Incidents, 2025

11[1]

Major discipline records

0

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

58[6]

66 years reported

58 sworn officers in 2025, up from 40 in 1960 (+45%).
Yearsworn officers
196040
196141
196241
196343
196443
196545
196645
196745
196847
196949
197049
197152
197251
197350
197452
197550
197650
197752
197849
197951
198051
198151
198250
198352
198451
198550
198653
198752
198852
198954
199054
199153
199254
199354
199454
199556
199654
199756
199856
199956
200058
200157
200257
200357
200455
200559
200659
200764
200863
200964
201054
201153
201255
201356
201456
201556
201659
201760
201859
201960
202060
202161
202262
202359
202460
202558

Civilian employees, 2025

9[7]

0.16 per sworn officer

Female sworn officers, 2025

1[8]

1.7% of sworn officers

Officers per 1,000 residents, 2025

1.57[9]

Municipal departments only

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

How Fair Lawn 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
30–3538
35–4027
40–4516
45–5014
50–5510
55–606

Fair Lawn Police Department: 58 sworn officers: 99th 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 58 active Fair Lawn Police Department officers in the file.

Median officer salary

$155,542[2]

58 active officers

Median local school staff

$91,122

FAIR LAWN BD OF ED, 562 TPAF members

Against the local district

1.71x

Median officer to median local school staff

Against the county

1.70x

Median officer to Bergen 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 "FAIR LAWN 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 Bergen 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 Fair Lawn Police Department, by year
Categorycounts
202113
202215
202317
202415
202516

Incidents

11 in 2025

Internal affairs incidents reported by Fair Lawn Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
202113
202211
202310
202410
202511

Officers on IA rows

16 in 2025

Officers listed on the officer-level internal affairs rows for Fair Lawn Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
2021not reported
2022not reported
2023not reported
202415
202516
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 Fair Lawn Police Department, by year
Yearshare of total
20210
20226.667
202358.824
202433.333
20256.25

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 16 officers involved.

Most serious allegation

Most serious allegations reported by Fair Lawn Police Department, 2025
Theft4
Other Departmental Rule Violation4
Demeanor3
Differential Treatment2
Excessive Force2
Neglect of Duty1
AdministrativeConduct / dutyRights / integrityViolence / criminal

Statewide category pages: Theft · Other Departmental Rule Violation · Demeanor · Differential Treatment · Excessive Force · Neglect of Duty

Internal disposition

Internal dispositions reported by Fair Lawn Police Department, 2025
Exonerated6
Administratively Closed4
Unfounded3
Not Sustained2
Sustained1

Allegations by year, 2021 to 2025

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

Other Departmental Rule Violation

20 of 76

Other Departmental Rule Violation allegations reported by Fair Lawn Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20216
20223
20235
20242
20254

Demeanor

13 of 76

Demeanor allegations reported by Fair Lawn Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20214
20223
20231
20242
20253

Excessive Force

13 of 76

Excessive Force allegations reported by Fair Lawn Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20212
20225
20231
20243
20252

Neglect of Duty

7 of 76

Neglect of Duty allegations reported by Fair Lawn Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20210
20220
20233
20243
20251

Other (9 categories)

23 of 76

Other (9 categories) allegations reported by Fair Lawn Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20211
20224
20237
20245
20256

Against peers, 2025

How this grade was built →
Internal affairs investigations per 100 IA-investigated officers, 2025 (investigations per 100 IA-investigated officers)
Fair Lawn Police Department145.5
County median, municipal police (60)125.3
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.

16 investigations reported for 2025[1] ÷ 58 sworn officers the department reported to the FBI for 2025[21] = 27.6 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 A: Lowest fifth of peers

On reported IA volume and discipline severity; see methodology

Combined standing
6th 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 Fair Lawn 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

Fair Lawn Police Department: 0 severity-weighted discipline per 100 IA-investigated officers: 2nd 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%

19th percentileof 93 peers

117.1 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%

2nd percentileof 93 peers

0.0 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%

84th percentileof 93 peers

2.34 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 officers2025145.5130th of 445 municipal police
IA investigations202516139th of 445 municipal police
IA incidents202511163rd of 445 municipal police
Sworn per 1,000 residentslatest reported census year1.57418th of 460 municipal police
Police pay vs school paypension snapshot 2026-03-311.70x50th of 415 municipal police
OPRA requests recordedOPRAmachine, 2017 to present12360th of 458 municipal police

Major discipline records

No major discipline records appear for this agency in the 2020-2025 releases. Absence of records is not a finding; see the methodology for what this data does and does not cover.

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.

Police-related requests

12[3]

Every request filed to this department

Most recent request

April 2026[3]

First recorded August 2020

Awaiting a response

9[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 records requests to Fair Lawn Police Department (requests)
Awaiting agency response9
Requester reported success3

Recent requests

The 12 most recent requests to Fair Lawn Police Department, 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. 2026-04-04Awaiting agency response
  2. 2026-01-07Awaiting agency response
  3. 2025-10-05Awaiting agency response
  4. 2025-09-10Awaiting agency response
  5. 2025-03-21Awaiting agency response
  6. 2024-04-15Requester reported success
  7. 2024-02-09Awaiting agency response
  8. 2023-06-02Awaiting agency response
  9. 2023-04-12Awaiting agency response
  10. 2022-06-02Requester reported success
  11. 2020-10-08Requester reported success
  12. 2020-08-28Awaiting 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 department 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 Fair Lawn Police Department 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 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 Fair Lawn Police Department's internal affairs and discipline record?

Fair Lawn Police Department, a municipal police agency in Bergen County, named 11 officers in internal affairs cases in 2025 and reported 16 investigations that year. The rate of 145.5 per 100 officers ran ahead of the Bergen County median of 125.3 and the statewide municipal median of 125.9, and a higher rate is ambiguous on its face: it can point to more misconduct or to a department that records more of what comes in. Of the 16 investigations detailed for 2025, 1 reported a sustained complaint. Theft and Other Departmental Rule Violation were the leading allegation categories, with Demeanor close behind. No major discipline records appear in the 2020-2025 releases, and the absence of records is not a finding. Fair Lawn PD received an A on the report card, at the 6th percentile among 93 peers in the 60+ officers group, a medium-confidence grade.

How many internal affairs investigations did Fair Lawn Police Department report in 2025?

Fair Lawn Police Department reported 16 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 Fair Lawn Police Department have?

No major discipline records appear for Fair Lawn Police Department in the Attorney General's 2020-2025 releases. Absence of records is not a finding; discipline is listed only after all appeals conclude.

How many officers does Fair Lawn Police Department have?

Fair Lawn Police Department reported 58 full-time sworn officers to the FBI's Law Enforcement Employees census for 2025, 1.7% of them female. That is 1.57 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 Fair Lawn Police Department pay its officers compared with local school staff?

The median pensionable salary for the 58 active Fair Lawn Police Department officers in the NJ Treasury pension file is $155,542. The median for the 562 TPAF-enrolled staff at FAIR LAWN BD OF ED is $91,122, a ratio of 1.71x. Against the Bergen County school-staff median the ratio is 1.70x. 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 2074. 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 Fair Lawn Police Department. 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 Fair Lawn 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 8146. 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 8146. 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 8146. 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 8146. 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 39. 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 1055. 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 1568. 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 545. 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 2074. 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 Fair Lawn 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 Fair Lawn 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 Fair Lawn 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 Fair Lawn 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 Fair Lawn 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 Fair Lawn PD row for 2025. ↩
  21. [21]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8146. 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. ↩