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Department profile · Union County

Fanwood Police Department

Reported as: Fanwood 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

Fanwood Police Department, a municipal police agency in Union County, named 2 officers in internal affairs cases in 2025 and reported 2 investigations that year. The rate of 100 per 100 officers fell below the Union County median of 137 and the statewide municipal median of 125.9. A rate under the medians is not proof of less misconduct; it can also describe a department that writes up fewer of the complaints it takes. None of the 2 investigations detailed for 2025 reported sustained complaints. The only allegation category was Demeanor.

One major discipline record appears across the 2020-2025 releases, from 2021, and it was a termination. Fanwood PD received a C on the report card, at the 53rd 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

2[1]

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

IA investigations, 2025

2[1]

Incidents, 2025

1[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

15[6]

66 years reported

15 sworn officers in 2025, up from 13 in 1960 (+15%).
Yearsworn officers
196013
196114
196214
196314
196414
196516
196616
196716
196815
196915
197016
197117
197218
197319
197420
197520
197620
197721
197821
197921
198021
198121
198221
198321
198421
198520
198621
198721
198821
198921
199021
199121
199221
199321
199421
199521
199621
199721
199821
199920
200020
200121
200221
200321
200421
200521
200621
200721
200820
200918
201017
201117
201217
201317
201417
201517
201617
201717
201817
201917
202016
202116
202216
202315
202415
202515

Civilian employees, 2025

2[7]

0.13 per sworn officer

Female sworn officers, 2025

1[8]

6.7% of sworn officers

Officers per 1,000 residents, 2025

1.87[9]

Municipal departments only

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

How Fanwood 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
14–1616
16–1820
18–2027
20–2217
22–2426
24–2624
26–2817
28–3019

Fanwood Police Department: 15 sworn officers: 5th 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 15 active Fanwood Police Department officers in the file.

Median officer salary

$112,763[2]

15 active officers

Median school staff

$89,365

Union County, all TPAF members

Against the county

1.26x

Median officer to Union 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 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 Fanwood Police Department, by year
Categorycounts
20212
20225
20236
20244
20252

Incidents

1 in 2025

Internal affairs incidents reported by Fanwood Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20211
20224
20234
20242
20251

Officers on IA rows

2 in 2025

Officers listed on the officer-level internal affairs rows for Fanwood Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
2021not reported
2022not reported
2023not reported
20244
20252
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 Fanwood Police Department, by year
Yearshare of total
20210
20220
202316.667
202475
20250

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 2 officers involved.

Most serious allegation

Most serious allegations reported by Fanwood Police Department, 2025
Demeanor2
AdministrativeConduct / dutyRights / integrityViolence / criminal

Statewide category pages: Demeanor

Internal disposition

Internal dispositions reported by Fanwood Police Department, 2025
Exonerated2

Allegations by year, 2021 to 2025

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

Neglect of Duty

9 of 19

Neglect of Duty allegations reported by Fanwood Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20210
20223
20233
20243
20250

Demeanor

6 of 19

Demeanor allegations reported by Fanwood Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20210
20222
20231
20241
20252

Other Departmental Rule Violation

2 of 19

Other Departmental Rule Violation allegations reported by Fanwood Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20212
20220
20230
20240
20250

BWC/MVR Violation

1 of 19

BWC/MVR Violation allegations reported by Fanwood Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20210
20220
20231
20240
20250

Differential Treatment

1 of 19

Differential Treatment allegations reported by Fanwood Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20210
20220
20231
20240
20250

Against peers, 2025

How this grade was built →
Internal affairs investigations per 100 IA-investigated officers, 2025 (investigations per 100 IA-investigated officers)
Fanwood Police Department100.0
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.

2 investigations reported for 2025[1] ÷ 15 sworn officers the department reported to the FBI for 2025[21] = 13.3 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 C: Middle fifth of peers

On reported IA volume and discipline severity; see methodology

Combined standing
53rd 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 Fanwood 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

Fanwood Police Department: 111.111 severity-weighted discipline per 100 IA-investigated officers: 90th 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%

17th percentileof 171 peers

105.0 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%

90th percentileof 171 peers

111.1 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%

45th percentileof 171 peers

1.95 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 officers2025100.0322nd of 445 municipal police
IA investigations20252376th of 445 municipal police
IA incidents20251405th of 445 municipal police
Major discipline2020-20251184th of 282 municipal police
Terminations2020-2025130th of 111 municipal police
Sworn per 1,000 residentslatest reported census year1.87348th of 460 municipal police
Police pay vs school paypension snapshot 2026-03-311.26x268th of 415 municipal police
OPRA requests recordedOPRAmachine, 2017 to present10414th of 458 municipal police

Major discipline records

0 major discipline records in 2025, holding roughly steady.
Yearmajor discipline records
20200
20211
20220
20230
20240
20250

0 major discipline records in 2025, holding roughly steady.

Major discipline records reported by Fanwood Police Department, 2020-2025
YearOfficerRankSanction as reportedSrc
2021Christopher EckersonOfficerTerminatedSuspended 0 days[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 Fanwood Borough, the municipal records custodian, which also fields requests about permits, property, and code enforcement. Only the 10 requests whose subject line indicates it concerns the police department are counted below. The other 94 filed to Fanwood Borough are about something else and are not shown.

Police-related requests

10[3]

Identified by subject line, of 104 filed to Fanwood Borough

Most recent request

September 2025[3]

First recorded May 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 police-related records requests to Fanwood Borough (requests)
Awaiting agency response9
Requester reported success1

Recent requests

The 10 most recent police-related requests to Fanwood Borough, 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. 2025-09-15Awaiting agency response
  2. 2025-03-21Awaiting agency response
  3. 2023-08-31Awaiting agency response
  4. 2023-08-31Awaiting agency response
  5. 2021-04-20Requester reported success
  6. 2020-05-28Awaiting agency response
  7. 2020-05-28Awaiting agency response
  8. 2020-05-27Awaiting agency response
  9. 2020-05-27Awaiting agency response
  10. 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 Fanwood Borough 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 Fanwood Borough 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 Fanwood Police Department's internal affairs and discipline record?

Fanwood Police Department, a municipal police agency in Union County, named 2 officers in internal affairs cases in 2025 and reported 2 investigations that year. The rate of 100 per 100 officers fell below the Union County median of 137 and the statewide municipal median of 125.9. A rate under the medians is not proof of less misconduct; it can also describe a department that writes up fewer of the complaints it takes. None of the 2 investigations detailed for 2025 reported sustained complaints. The only allegation category was Demeanor. One major discipline record appears across the 2020-2025 releases, from 2021, and it was a termination. Fanwood PD received a C on the report card, at the 53rd percentile among 171 peers in the 15-29 officers group, a medium-confidence grade.

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

Fanwood Police Department reported 2 internal affairs investigations in 2025, according to New Jersey Attorney General data. 2 distinct officers were named in that year's IA investigations.

How many major discipline records does Fanwood Police Department have?

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

How many officers does Fanwood Police Department have?

Fanwood Police Department reported 15 full-time sworn officers to the FBI's Law Enforcement Employees census for 2025, 6.7% of them female. That is 1.87 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 Fanwood Police Department pay its officers compared with local school staff?

The median pensionable salary for the 15 active Fanwood Police Department officers in the NJ Treasury pension file is $112,763. Against the Union County school-staff median the ratio is 1.26x. 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 2525. 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 Fanwood Borough. 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 Fanwood 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 8605. 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 8605. 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 8605. 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 8605. 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 478. 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 1501. 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 2008. 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 986. 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 2525. 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 Fanwood 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 Fanwood 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 Fanwood 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 Fanwood 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 Fanwood 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 Fanwood PD row for 2025. ↩
  21. [21]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8605. 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 2773. Snapshot retrieved 2026-07-03. ↩