The lawsuit suggests that, before Union County took over Clark’s police operations in 2025, local leaders issued officers with explicit instructions to keep Black people away from and out of the town.
New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin has filed a lawsuit claiming that Clark Township and the Clark Police Department have systematically discriminated against African-American drivers and other non-white motorists.
In a press release, Platkin’s office said that the lawsuit is predicated on the findings of an investigation conducted by the Division on Civil Rights. The investigation was conducted over the course of a decade, running from 2015 through March 2025. It found that Clark Township and its police department have enacted and executed a wide range of discriminatory policies, many at the apparent behest of Clark’s former mayor, Salvatore Bonaccorso.
The lawsuit suggests that, before Union County took over Clark’s police operations in 2025, local leaders issued officers with explicit instructions to keep Black people away from and out of the town. Bonaccorso, for instance, purportedly told the Clark Police Department to “keep chasing the spooks out of town.”
“Elected officials and law enforcement leaders must treat every single person, no matter their race or national origin, with dignity and respect. That’s the bare minimum. But for many years before the Union County Prosecutor’s Office took over operations in 2020, leadership in Clark Township and the Clark Police Department completely and utterly failed to meet that basic obligation,” Platkin said in a statement. “Through overt racial animus and discriminatory policing practices, Clark violated New Jersey’s civil rights laws and the New Jersey Constitution. While we have already taken substantial steps to address these issues, today’s complaint gives voice to the many New Jerseyans who have suffered discrimination in Clark and will ensure that Clark’s leadership never allows it to happen again.”
The lawsuit notes that the town’s allegedly discriminatory policies had three key effects.
“CPD leadership implemented at least three practices that resulted in discriminatory policing and harassment: (1) focusing motor vehicle enforcement on roadways connecting Clark to the Garden State Parkway and to neighboring Rahway and Linden, which have much larger Black and Hispanic populations; (2) prioritizing the policing of low-level administrative and equipment violations over moving violations more directly related to traffic safety; and (3) using false allegations concerning the odor of marijuana as a basis to search vehicles,” Platkin’s office said in a press release.
The state is seeking an injunction prohibiting Clark Township and the Clark Police Department from “discriminating against individuals based on their actual or perceived race, color, ancestry, national origin, or nationality.” It also requests that the court continue to monitor Clark’s operations going forward, and asks that the township pay damages to the victims of the town’s allegedly discriminatory policing policies.
Sources
Lawsuit filed against Clark Township, police department over discrimination
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