Officer record · As reported by the employing agency

Joseph Morrell

West New York Police Department · 1 record · 2022

About this data

Records on this page come from the Attorney General's major discipline releases: final, post-appeal discipline as reported by the employing agency. They are sustained charges, not allegations.
All figures are self-reported by agencies to the New Jersey Attorney General and shown as reported. Blank fields read "not reported," never "no."
Data is a yearly snapshot. Cases are not tracked across years, and major discipline appears only in the year it became final after all appeals.
In internal affairs data, allegations are not findings: many complaints end unfounded, exonerated, or not sustained.
Any compensation figure below comes from New Jersey Treasury pension data, a separate source from the discipline records. It is matched to this officer by name and employing agency at high confidence, not by certified identity.

Full caveats and definitions: methodology. To request a correction against the official record: corrections.

Major discipline · 2022^[1]

Suspended 20 days

Rank as reported: PO
Sustained charge(s): a Public Employee
Separated while IA pending: not applicable (collected 2023 and later)

Plain-language summary (this site, from the cited record only)

Police Officer Joseph Morrell was suspended for 20 days by the West New York Police Department in 2022. The agency reported that on August 25, 2021, Morrell responded to a dispute and encountered an intoxicated male, and used excessive force during the medical transport of the male. Morrell failed to exhaust all other reasonable means before resorting to use of force, in violation of departmental protocols. The sustained charge was conduct unbecoming a public employee.

Synopsis as reported by the agency

On August 25, 2021, Officer Morrell responded to a dispute. Upon arrival, he encountered an intoxicated male and used excessive force during the medical transport of said male. Officer Morrell failed to exhaust all other reasonable means before resorting to use of force. This conduct was inappropriate and a violation of departmental protocols.

Compensation and pension

Active member · NJ Treasury YourMoney^[2]

This site: records-based match

Base salary (pension basis): $140,051
Pension fund: Police and Firemen's Retirement System (PFRS)
Reported years of service: 7 years, 8 months

How to read this

The amount is as reported by the New Jersey Department of the Treasury in its YourMoney pension data, as of March 31, 2026. It is the pension-basis figure and may not include overtime, accrued leave, stipends, or other pay. The link between this officer and this pension record is a records-based match at high confidence (exact name and exact employing agency), not a certified identity. If it is wrong, we will remove it: corrections.

Sources

[1]New Jersey Major Discipline Data, 2020-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Major Discipline Data", row 2223. Snapshot retrieved 2026-07-03. ↩
[2]YourMoney Active Pension Members (PFRS/SPRS subset). New Jersey Department of the Treasury. Row 221064, snapshot as of March 31, 2026. Derived from the public YourMoney Active Pension Members dataset, https://www.yourmoney.nj.gov/. ↩