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Department profile · Union County

Garwood Police Department

Reported as: Garwood 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

Garwood Police Department, a municipal police agency in Union County, named 4 officers in internal affairs cases in 2025 and reported 5 investigations. The rate of 125 per 100 officers came in below the Union County median of 137 and a shade under the statewide municipal median of 125.9, close enough that little should be read into it, since a rate near the middle can describe ordinary conduct or ordinary record-keeping. Of the 5 investigations detailed for 2025, 3 reported sustained complaints. Other Departmental Rule Violation led the allegation categories, with Differential Treatment and Demeanor also recorded.

Two major discipline records appear across the 2020-2025 releases, both from 2025. Garwood PD received a D on the report card, at the 74th 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

4[1]

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

IA investigations, 2025

5[1]

Incidents, 2025

5[1]

Major discipline records

2

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

18[7]

66 years reported

18 sworn officers in 2025, up from 10 in 1960 (+80%).
Yearsworn officers
196010
196110
196210
196310
196410
196510
196611
196711
196811
196912
197013
197114
197213
197314
197414
197514
197612
197714
197814
197914
198014
198114
198215
198315
198415
198516
198616
198717
198817
198918
199017
199117
199216
199316
199416
199516
199616
199716
199816
199916
200016
200116
200216
200316
200416
200516
200614
200716
200816
200916
201016
201116
201216
201315
201416
201516
201616
201716
201816
201916
202016
202116
202216
202316
202416
202518

Civilian employees, 2025

4[8]

0.22 per sworn officer

Female sworn officers, 2025

1[9]

5.6% of sworn officers

Officers per 1,000 residents, 2025

3.21[10]

Municipal departments only

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

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

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

Sworn officers: Municipal police, 15-29 officers
RangeAgencies
14–1617
16–1820
18–2026
20–2217
22–2426
24–2624
26–2817
28–3019

Garwood Police Department: 18 sworn officers: 26th 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 18 active Garwood Police Department officers in the file.

Median officer salary

$94,828[2]

18 active officers

Median local school staff

$66,731

GARWOOD BOROUGH BD OF ED, 40 TPAF members

Against the local district

1.42x

Median officer to median local school staff

Against the county

1.06x

Median officer to Union County school-staff median

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

Military surplus equipment (1033 program)

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

Internal affairs investigations by year

counts

Internal affairs investigations reported by Garwood Police Department, by year
Categorycounts
20213
20225
20231
20248
20255

Incidents

5 in 2025

Internal affairs incidents reported by Garwood Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20212
20225
20231
20248
20255

Officers on IA rows

5 in 2025

Officers listed on the officer-level internal affairs rows for Garwood Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
2021not reported
2022not reported
2023not reported
20248
20255
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 Garwood Police Department, by year
Yearshare of total
20210
2022100
2023100
20240
202560

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 5 officers involved.

Most serious allegation

Most serious allegations reported by Garwood Police Department, 2025
Other Departmental Rule Violation3
Differential Treatment1
Demeanor1
AdministrativeConduct / dutyRights / integrityViolence / criminal

Statewide category pages: Other Departmental Rule Violation · Differential Treatment · Demeanor

Internal disposition

Internal dispositions reported by Garwood Police Department, 2025
Sustained3
Unfounded2

Allegations by year, 2021 to 2025

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

Other Departmental Rule Violation

12 of 22

Other Departmental Rule Violation allegations reported by Garwood Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20213
20221
20231
20244
20253

False Documentation/Falsifying A Report (Non-Criminal)

3 of 22

False Documentation/Falsifying A Report (Non-Criminal) allegations reported by Garwood Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20210
20221
20230
20242
20250

Neglect of duty

3 of 22

Neglect of duty allegations reported by Garwood Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20210
20223
20230
20240
20250

Demeanor

2 of 22

Demeanor allegations reported by Garwood Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20210
20220
20230
20241
20251

Other (2 categories)

2 of 22

Other (2 categories) allegations reported by Garwood Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20210
20220
20230
20241
20251

Against peers, 2025

How this grade was built →
Internal affairs investigations per 100 IA-investigated officers, 2025 (investigations per 100 IA-investigated officers)
Garwood Police Department125.0
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.

5 investigations reported for 2025[1] ÷ 18 sworn officers the department reported to the FBI for 2025[22] = 27.8 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
74th 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 Garwood 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

Garwood 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%

56th percentileof 171 peers

122.9 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%

26th percentileof 171 peers

1.73 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 officers2025125.0226th of 445 municipal police
IA investigations20255302nd of 445 municipal police
IA incidents20255267th of 445 municipal police
Major discipline2020-20252127th of 282 municipal police
Sworn per 1,000 residentslatest reported census year3.21100th of 460 municipal police
Police pay vs school paypension snapshot 2026-03-311.06x351st of 415 municipal police
OPRA requests recordedOPRAmachine, 2017 to present13325th of 458 municipal police

Major discipline records

2 major discipline records in 2025, up from 0 in 2020.
Yearmajor discipline records
20200
20210
20220
20230
20240
20252

2 major discipline records in 2025, up from 0 in 2020.

Major discipline records reported by Garwood Police Department, 2020-2025
YearOfficerRankSanction as reportedSrc
2025Roberto CamporealePatrolmanSeparated while IA pending[24]
2025Christopher SmedbergPatrolmanSuspended 8 days[25]

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 Garwood Police Department, from 2002. The dataset's own as-recorded force label for that record is Vehicle. Fatal Encounters was an independent, crowdsourced journalism project that documented deaths occurring during police encounters of any kind, including vehicle pursuits, medical emergencies, and suicides in police presence. A record is not a finding of fault against the agency or any officer, and it is separate from the Attorney General discipline data reported elsewhere on this site. The project stopped collecting in December 2021, so the dataset ends there.

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 Garwood 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.

  • Sasko Hristov

    December 17, 2002 · Westfield · Highest level of force as recorded: Vehicle

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 Garwood Borough, the municipal records custodian, which also fields requests about permits, property, and code enforcement. Only the 13 requests whose subject line indicates it concerns the police department are counted below. The other 64 filed to Garwood Borough are about something else and are not shown.

Police-related requests

13[4]

Identified by subject line, of 77 filed to Garwood Borough

Most recent request

September 2025[4]

First recorded May 2020

Awaiting a response

10[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 Garwood Borough (requests)
Awaiting agency response10
Requester reported success2
Delivery error1

Recent requests

The 12 most recent police-related requests to Garwood 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. 2025-08-22Awaiting agency response
  3. 2025-04-30Requester reported success
  4. 2025-03-28Awaiting agency response
  5. 2024-04-17Delivery error
  6. 2023-08-31Awaiting agency response
  7. 2023-08-31Awaiting agency response
  8. 2021-04-20Requester reported success
  9. 2020-05-28Awaiting agency response
  10. 2020-05-28Awaiting agency response
  11. 2020-05-27Awaiting agency response
  12. 2020-05-27Awaiting agency response
Show what each request asked for, as the requester wrote it

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

File your own records request

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

File an OPRA request about this department

See every request filed to Garwood 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 Garwood 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 Garwood Police Department's internal affairs and discipline record?

Garwood Police Department, a municipal police agency in Union County, named 4 officers in internal affairs cases in 2025 and reported 5 investigations. The rate of 125 per 100 officers came in below the Union County median of 137 and a shade under the statewide municipal median of 125.9, close enough that little should be read into it, since a rate near the middle can describe ordinary conduct or ordinary record-keeping. Of the 5 investigations detailed for 2025, 3 reported sustained complaints. Other Departmental Rule Violation led the allegation categories, with Differential Treatment and Demeanor also recorded. Two major discipline records appear across the 2020-2025 releases, both from 2025. Garwood PD received a D on the report card, at the 74th percentile among 171 peers in the 15-29 officers group, a medium-confidence grade.

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

Garwood Police Department reported 5 internal affairs investigations in 2025, according to New Jersey Attorney General data. 4 distinct officers were named in that year's IA investigations.

How many major discipline records does Garwood Police Department have?

Garwood Police Department has 2 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 Garwood Police Department have?

Garwood Police Department reported 18 full-time sworn officers to the FBI's Law Enforcement Employees census for 2025, 5.6% of them female. That is 3.21 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 Garwood Police Department?

The independent Fatal Encounters dataset contains 1 record naming Garwood Police Department, from 2002 through 2002. 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 Garwood Police Department pay its officers compared with local school staff?

The median pensionable salary for the 18 active Garwood Police Department officers in the NJ Treasury pension file is $94,828. The median for the 40 TPAF-enrolled staff at GARWOOD BOROUGH BD OF ED is $66,731, a ratio of 1.42x. Against the Union County school-staff median the ratio is 1.06x. 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 2526. 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 Garwood 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. ↩
  5. [5]New Jersey Internal Affairs Officers, 2024-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Officer counts summed across every Garwood 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 8606. 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 8606. 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 8606. 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 8606. 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 479. 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 1502. 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 2009. 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 987. 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 2526. 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 Garwood 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 Garwood 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 Garwood 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 Garwood 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 Garwood 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 Garwood PD row for 2025. ↩
  22. [22]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8606. 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 798. 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 799. Snapshot retrieved 2026-07-03. ↩