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Department profile · Essex County

South Orange Police Department

Reported as: South Orange PDMunicipal police

Jurisdiction context

Civil service jurisdiction

Discipline at this department is governed by the Title 4A civil service framework, matched to South Orange Village 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.

Radio encryption

South Orange Police Department encrypts its radio communications (P25 AES-256, part of its operations (Only Channel 2 is encrypted)), according to PoliceRadioEncryption.com, as of 2026-03-06 (verified).

AnalysisThis site treats radio encryption as a meaningful transparency signal. When a department closes its radio traffic to the public, the public loses a real-time window into how it operates. That is context for reading the discipline and internal affairs records on this page, not a figure drawn from them.

In brief

South Orange Police Department reported 35 internal affairs investigations in 2025 and 19 officers named in those cases, a rate of 184.2 per 100 officers. The Essex County median was 158.6 and the statewide municipal median was 125.9. A rate that far above the medians can reflect a heavier volume of misconduct or a department that records more of the complaints brought to it. Of the 35 investigations detailed for 2025, 10 reported sustained complaints. Other Departmental Rule Violation was the leading allegation category, with Demeanor and Differential Treatment also prominent. Allegations are not findings.

Four major discipline records appear across the 2020-2025 releases, from 2021, 2024 and 2025. South Orange received a D on the report card, at the 80th percentile among 110 peers in the 30-59 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

19[1]

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

IA investigations, 2025

35[1]

Incidents, 2025

35[1]

Major discipline records

4

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

44[6]

66 years reported

44 sworn officers in 2025, holding roughly steady.
Yearsworn officers
196042
196143
196245
196345
196445
196541
196647
196746
196846
196948
197047
197148
197247
197352
197453
197554
197654
197753
197853
197953
198053
198153
198252
198353
198450
198552
198645
198747
198847
198945
199055
199155
199251
199350
199454
199556
199655
199749
199856
199954
200054
200156
200255
200357
200454
200556
200655
200757
200857
200951
201052
201152
201250
201347
201448
201548
201644
201745
201845
201945
202046
202139
202245
202343
202443
202544

Civilian employees, 2025

6[7]

0.14 per sworn officer

Female sworn officers, 2025

3[8]

6.8% of sworn officers

Officers per 1,000 residents, 2025

2.34[9]

Municipal departments only

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

How South Orange 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
40–4515
45–5014
50–5510
55–607

South Orange Police Department: 44 sworn officers: 70th 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 44 active South Orange Police Department officers in the file.

Median officer salary

$108,274[2]

44 active officers

Median school staff

$90,554

Essex County, all TPAF members

Against the county

1.20x

Median officer to Essex 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 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 South Orange Police Department, by year
Categorycounts
202119
202241
202344
202440
202535

Incidents

35 in 2025

Internal affairs incidents reported by South Orange Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
202119
202241
202344
202440
202535

Officers on IA rows

35 in 2025

Officers listed on the officer-level internal affairs rows for South Orange Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
2021not reported
2022not reported
2023not reported
202440
202535
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 South Orange Police Department, by year
Yearshare of total
20210
202241.463
202336.364
2024100
202528.571

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 35 officers involved.

Most serious allegation

Most serious allegations reported by South Orange Police Department, 2025
Other Departmental Rule Violation10
Demeanor7
Differential Treatment5
Insubordination/Disobeying An Order4
not provided3
Conduct Unbecoming/Discredit To The Agency2
Domestic violence (Non-Criminal)1
Preventable MV Accident1
AdministrativeConduct / dutyRights / integrityViolence / criminal

Statewide category pages: Other Departmental Rule Violation · Demeanor · Differential Treatment · Insubordination/Disobeying An Order · Conduct Unbecoming/Discredit To The Agency · Domestic violence (Non-Criminal) · Preventable MV Accident

Internal disposition

Internal dispositions reported by South Orange Police Department, 2025
Unfounded13
Sustained10
Not Sustained7
Exonerated3
not provided2

Allegations by year, 2021 to 2025

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

Other Departmental Rule Violation

50 of 179

Other Departmental Rule Violation allegations reported by South Orange Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20216
202215
20237
202412
202510

Demeanor

37 of 179

Demeanor allegations reported by South Orange Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20217
202210
20235
20248
20257

Differential Treatment

23 of 179

Differential Treatment allegations reported by South Orange Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20212
20223
20232
202411
20255

Insubordination/Disobeying An Order

13 of 179

Insubordination/Disobeying An Order allegations reported by South Orange Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20210
20224
20231
20244
20254

Other (18 categories)

56 of 179

Other (18 categories) allegations reported by South Orange Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20214
20229
202329
20245
20259

Against peers, 2025

How this grade was built →
Internal affairs investigations per 100 IA-investigated officers, 2025 (investigations per 100 IA-investigated officers)
South Orange Police Department184.2
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.

35 investigations reported for 2025[1] ÷ 44 sworn officers the department reported to the FBI for 2025[21] = 79.5 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
80th percentile of 110 peers
Confidence
High confidence

Where this agency falls among its peers

The actual spread of discipline severity across South Orange Police Department's real peer group, not an assumed bell curve. If the group is skewed, it is shown skewed.

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

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

South Orange Police Department: 40.179 severity-weighted discipline per 100 IA-investigated officers: 55th percentile among Municipal police, 30-59 officers (n=110).

How the grade is built

Three components, each a percentile within the peer group. The combined standing is their weighted mean, re-ranked among peers; the grade is the fifth of the peer group it lands in.

IA volumeweight 40%

94th percentileof 110 peers

159.3 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%

55th percentileof 110 peers

40.2 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%

24th percentileof 110 peers

1.87 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 officers2025184.239th of 445 municipal police
IA investigations20253564th of 445 municipal police
IA incidents20253543rd of 445 municipal police
Major discipline2020-2025458th of 282 municipal police
Sworn per 1,000 residentslatest reported census year2.34234th of 460 municipal police
Police pay vs school paypension snapshot 2026-03-311.20x310th of 415 municipal police
OPRA requests recordedOPRAmachine, 2017 to present17232nd of 458 municipal police

Major discipline records

1 major discipline records in 2025, up from 0 in 2020.
Yearmajor discipline records
20200
20212
20220
20230
20241
20251

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

Major discipline records reported by South Orange Police Department, 2020-2025
YearOfficerRankSanction as reportedSrc
2025Matthew DsurneyOfficerSuspended 5 days[23]
2024Matthew DsurneyOfficerSuspended 4 days[24]
2021Michael CuccinielloSergeantDemotedSuspended 60 days[25]
2021Darrell TerryOfficerSuspended 8 days[26]

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 South Orange Village, the municipal records custodian, which also fields requests about permits, property, and code enforcement. Only the 17 requests whose subject line indicates it concerns the police department are counted below. The other 133 filed to South Orange Village are about something else and are not shown.

Police-related requests

17[3]

Identified by subject line, of 150 filed to South Orange Village

Most recent request

May 2026[3]

First recorded February 2020

Awaiting a response

12[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 South Orange Village (requests)
Awaiting agency response12
Requester reported success5

Recent requests

The 12 most recent police-related requests to South Orange Village, 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. 2026-05-19Awaiting agency response
  2. 2026-04-07Awaiting agency response
  3. 2026-04-07Awaiting agency response
  4. 2025-09-24Awaiting agency response
  5. 2025-04-23Awaiting agency response
  6. 2024-11-09Requester reported success
  7. 2024-11-09Requester reported success
  8. 2023-12-19Requester reported success
  9. 2023-08-31Awaiting agency response
  10. 2023-08-31Requester reported success
  11. 2021-04-20Requester reported success
  12. 2020-05-28Awaiting 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 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 South Orange Village 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 South Orange Village 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 South Orange Police Department's internal affairs and discipline record?

South Orange Police Department reported 35 internal affairs investigations in 2025 and 19 officers named in those cases, a rate of 184.2 per 100 officers. The Essex County median was 158.6 and the statewide municipal median was 125.9. A rate that far above the medians can reflect a heavier volume of misconduct or a department that records more of the complaints brought to it. Of the 35 investigations detailed for 2025, 10 reported sustained complaints. Other Departmental Rule Violation was the leading allegation category, with Demeanor and Differential Treatment also prominent. Allegations are not findings. Four major discipline records appear across the 2020-2025 releases, from 2021, 2024 and 2025. South Orange received a D on the report card, at the 80th percentile among 110 peers in the 30-59 officers group, a high-confidence grade.

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

South Orange Police Department reported 35 internal affairs investigations in 2025, according to New Jersey Attorney General data. 19 distinct officers were named in that year's IA investigations.

How many major discipline records does South Orange Police Department have?

South Orange Police Department has 4 major discipline records in the Attorney General's 2020-2025 releases, of which 0 were terminations. These are final, adjudicated actions, not allegations.

Does South Orange Police Department encrypt its radio communications?

According to PoliceRadioEncryption.com, South Orange Police Department encrypts part of its radio communications (P25 AES-256), as recorded on 2026-03-06. This site treats radio encryption as a transparency signal, which is analysis, not a figure from the discipline data.

How many officers does South Orange Police Department have?

South Orange Police Department reported 44 full-time sworn officers to the FBI's Law Enforcement Employees census for 2025, 6.8% of them female. That is 2.34 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 South Orange Police Department pay its officers compared with local school staff?

The median pensionable salary for the 44 active South Orange Police Department officers in the NJ Treasury pension file is $108,274. Against the Essex County school-staff median the ratio is 1.20x. 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 2230. 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 South Orange Village. 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 South Orange 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 8303. 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 8303. 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 8303. 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 8303. 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 201. 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 1215. 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 1724. 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 707. 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 2230. 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 South Orange 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 South Orange 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 South Orange 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 South Orange 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 South Orange 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 South Orange PD row for 2025. ↩
  21. [21]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8303. 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 339. Snapshot retrieved 2026-07-03. ↩
  24. [24]New Jersey Major Discipline Data, 2020-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Major Discipline Data", row 1083. 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 2558. Snapshot retrieved 2026-07-03. ↩
  26. [26]New Jersey Major Discipline Data, 2020-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Major Discipline Data", row 2559. Snapshot retrieved 2026-07-03. ↩