Skip to content
POLICE TRANSPARENCY NJ
Menu

Department profile · Essex County

Nutley Police Department

Reported as: Nutley PDMunicipal police

Jurisdiction context

Civil service jurisdiction

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

Nutley Police Department logged 105 internal affairs investigations in 2025 involving 58 officers named in those cases. Its rate of 181 per 100 officers exceeded the Essex County median of 158.6 and the 125.9 statewide municipal median, a spread that can indicate more misconduct or a department that opens files on more complaints. Of the 105 investigations detailed for 2025, 13 reported sustained complaints. Other Departmental Rule Violation was the leading allegation category, followed by Harassment/Stalking and Other Criminal Violation. Allegations are not findings.

Two major discipline records appear across the 2020-2025 releases, both from 2024. Nutley PD received a C on the report card, at the 59th percentile among 93 peers in the 60+ officers group, a high-confidence grade.

Written by this site strictly from the figures on this page; every number is cited below.

Officers named in IA cases, 2025

58[1]

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

IA investigations, 2025

105[1]

Incidents, 2025

48[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

72[7]

65 years reported

72 sworn officers in 2025, up from 48 in 1960 (+50%).
Yearsworn officers
196048
196148
196248
196349
196451
196551
196653
196759
196859
196950
197058
197161
197261
197365
197466
197565
197669
197768
197867
197967
198067
198163
198265
198363
198463
198561
198663
198761
198863
198957
199062
199160
199260
199359
199464
199564
199664
199763
199864
199962
200063
200167
200264
200366
200463
200566
200665
200767
200869
200966
201067
201170
201263
2013not reported
201464
201570
201674
201769
201870
201972
202070
202172
202272
202372
202469
202572

Civilian employees, 2025

10[8]

0.14 per sworn officer

Female sworn officers, 2025

4[9]

5.6% of sworn officers

Officers per 1,000 residents, 2025

2.35[10]

Municipal departments only

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

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

Peer group: Municipal police, 60+ officers (n=92)

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

Nutley Police Department: 72 sworn officers: 26th percentile among Municipal police, 60+ officers (n=92).

The match between this FBI record and this department is this site's inference, not a certified mapping. If it is wrong, we will remove it: corrections.

Officer pay and school-staff pay

County comparison

A separate dataset from the discipline records above: NJ Treasury pension salaries as of March 31, 2026, for the 58 active Nutley Police Department officers in the file.

Median officer salary

$130,121[2]

58 active officers

Median local school staff

$88,599

NUTLEY BD OF ED, 391 TPAF members

Against the local district

1.47x

Median officer to median local school staff

Against the county

1.44x

Median officer to Essex 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 "NUTLEY 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 Essex 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 Nutley Police Department, by year
Categorycounts
202184
202268
202356
202477
2025105

Incidents

48 in 2025

Internal affairs incidents reported by Nutley Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
202144
202241
202330
202443
202548

Officers on IA rows

104 in 2025

Officers listed on the officer-level internal affairs rows for Nutley Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
2021not reported
2022not reported
2023not reported
202477
2025104
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 Nutley Police Department, by year
Yearshare of total
20210
202225
202325
202418.182
202512.381

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 104 officers involved.

Most serious allegation

Most serious allegations reported by Nutley Police Department, 2025
Other Departmental Rule Violation24
Harassment/Stalking20
Other Criminal Violation17
Demeanor14
Differential Treatment5
Improper Arrest5
Improper Entry4
Domestic violence (Non-Criminal)2
AdministrativeConduct / dutyRights / integrityViolence / criminal

Statewide category pages: Other Departmental Rule Violation · Harassment/Stalking · Other Criminal Violation · Demeanor · Differential Treatment · Improper Arrest · Improper Entry · Domestic violence (Non-Criminal)

Internal disposition

Internal dispositions reported by Nutley Police Department, 2025
not provided56
Exonerated22
Sustained13
Not Sustained9
Unfounded3
Administratively Closed2

Allegations by year, 2021 to 2025

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

Other Departmental Rule Violation

132 of 390

Other Departmental Rule Violation allegations reported by Nutley Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
202166
202213
202313
202416
202524

Demeanor

51 of 390

Demeanor allegations reported by Nutley Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20219
20226
202310
202412
202514

Harassment/Stalking

36 of 390

Harassment/Stalking allegations reported by Nutley Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20210
20220
20232
202414
202520

Differential Treatment

24 of 390

Differential Treatment allegations reported by Nutley Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20217
20221
20233
20248
20255

Other (20 categories)

147 of 390

Other (20 categories) allegations reported by Nutley Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20212
202248
202328
202427
202542

Against peers, 2025

How this grade was built →
Internal affairs investigations per 100 IA-investigated officers, 2025 (investigations per 100 IA-investigated officers)
Nutley Police Department181.0
County median, municipal police (22)158.6
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.

105 investigations reported for 2025[1] ÷ 72 sworn officers the department reported to the FBI for 2025[22] = 145.8 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 C: Middle fifth of peers

On reported IA volume and discipline severity; see methodology

Combined standing
59th percentile of 93 peers
Confidence
High confidence

Where this agency falls among its peers

The actual spread of discipline severity across Nutley 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

Nutley Police Department: 9.091 severity-weighted discipline per 100 IA-investigated officers: 10th 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%

94th percentileof 93 peers

177.0 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%

10th percentileof 93 peers

9.1 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%

65th percentileof 93 peers

2.12 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 officers2025181.041st of 445 municipal police
IA investigations202510515th of 445 municipal police
IA incidents20254828th of 445 municipal police
Major discipline2020-20252127th of 282 municipal police
Sworn per 1,000 residentslatest reported census year2.35226th of 460 municipal police
Police pay vs school paypension snapshot 2026-03-311.44x177th of 415 municipal police
OPRA requests recordedOPRAmachine, 2017 to present23143rd of 458 municipal police

Major discipline records

0 major discipline records in 2025, holding roughly steady.
Yearmajor discipline records
20200
20210
20220
20230
20242
20250

0 major discipline records in 2025, holding roughly steady.

Major discipline records reported by Nutley Police Department, 2020-2025
YearOfficerRankSanction as reportedSrc
2024Robert McDermottSergeantSuspended 120 days[24]
2024John MeckaOfficerSuspended 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)

Two records in the Fatal Encounters dataset name Nutley Police Department, one from 2000 and one from 2005. The dataset's own as-recorded force label is Asphyxiated/Restrained in one and Gunshot in the other. 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, and it does not say police caused the death. 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 Nutley 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.

  • David Jennings

    June 10, 2005 · Nutley · Highest level of force as recorded: Asphyxiated/Restrained

  • Thomas Clark

    May 5, 2000 · Nutley · 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.

Police-related requests

23[4]

Every request filed to this department

Most recent request

February 2026[4]

First recorded June 2020

Awaiting a response

17[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 records requests to Nutley Police Department (requests)
Awaiting agency response17
Under internal review5
Requester reported success1

Recent requests

The 12 most recent requests to Nutley 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. 2026-02-14Under internal review
  2. 2026-01-24Awaiting agency response
  3. 2025-12-08Awaiting agency response
  4. 2025-11-18Awaiting agency response
  5. 2025-10-22Awaiting agency response
  6. 2025-10-09Awaiting agency response
  7. 2025-07-26Awaiting agency response
  8. 2025-05-28Awaiting agency response
  9. 2025-05-06Awaiting agency response
  10. 2025-03-07Awaiting agency response
  11. 2025-02-26Awaiting agency response
  12. 2024-11-30Under internal review
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 Nutley 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 Nutley Police Department's internal affairs and discipline record?

Nutley Police Department logged 105 internal affairs investigations in 2025 involving 58 officers named in those cases. Its rate of 181 per 100 officers exceeded the Essex County median of 158.6 and the 125.9 statewide municipal median, a spread that can indicate more misconduct or a department that opens files on more complaints. Of the 105 investigations detailed for 2025, 13 reported sustained complaints. Other Departmental Rule Violation was the leading allegation category, followed by Harassment/Stalking and Other Criminal Violation. Allegations are not findings. Two major discipline records appear across the 2020-2025 releases, both from 2024. Nutley PD received a C on the report card, at the 59th percentile among 93 peers in the 60+ officers group, a high-confidence grade.

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

Nutley Police Department reported 105 internal affairs investigations in 2025, according to New Jersey Attorney General data. 58 distinct officers were named in that year's IA investigations.

How many major discipline records does Nutley Police Department have?

Nutley 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 Nutley Police Department have?

Nutley Police Department reported 72 full-time sworn officers to the FBI's Law Enforcement Employees census for 2025, 5.6% of them female. That is 2.35 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 Nutley Police Department?

The independent Fatal Encounters dataset contains 2 records naming Nutley Police Department, from 2000 through 2005. 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 Nutley Police Department pay its officers compared with local school staff?

The median pensionable salary for the 58 active Nutley Police Department officers in the NJ Treasury pension file is $130,121. The median for the 391 TPAF-enrolled staff at NUTLEY BD OF ED is $88,599, a ratio of 1.47x. Against the Essex County school-staff median the ratio is 1.44x. 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 2227. 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 Nutley 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. ↩
  5. [5]New Jersey Internal Affairs Officers, 2024-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Officer counts summed across every Nutley 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 8300. 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 8300. 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 8300. 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 8300. 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 198. 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 1212. 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 1721. 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 704. 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 2227. 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 Nutley 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 Nutley 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 Nutley 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 Nutley 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 Nutley 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 Nutley PD row for 2025. ↩
  22. [22]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8300. 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 1078. 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 1079. Snapshot retrieved 2026-07-03. ↩