Police Accountability Project of the
New Jersey Libertarian Party
P.O. Box 5424
Somerset, NJ 08875
March 19, 2013
Louis Siranides, Internal Affairs Unit
Jersey City Police Department
1 Journal Square Plaza
Jersey City, NJ 07306
(via e-mail to lsiranides@njjcps.org)
Dear Mr. Siranides:
I chair the New Jersey Libertarian Party's Police Accountability Project and ask that you accept this letter as our Internal Affairs complaint. We would like your agency to investigate whether Officer Anthony Goodman and other personnel employed by your agency acted in accordance with department policy and the law regarding a motor vehicle stop and arrest on October 25, 2011.
According to the Appellate Division's decision in State v. Danielle Wheeler, et al, Docket No. A-0196-12T1 (on-line here), Officer Goodman, based on a confidential informant's "grossly vague" tip, pulled over a vehicle driven by Mequanna Cooley. After the stop, Cooley volunteered information regarding drugs being in the car and also in her apartment. The trial court suppressed the drugs found in both the car and the apartment because the police "lacked the constitutional authority to initiate the investigative stop" of the vehicle Cooley was driving.
If Goodman, despite having received adequate training and direction regarding when and how to conduct investigative stops, elected to ignore his training, we ask that you discipline him. Otherwise, we ask that your department review and supplement your training requirements in this area of the law.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Very truly yours,
John Paff, Chairman
New Jersey Libertarian Party
Police Accountability Project
P.O. Box 5424
Somerset, NJ 08875-5424
Phone: 732-873-1251 - Fax: 908-325-0129
Email: paff@pobox.com
---Subsequent action
March 21, 2013 - complaint acknowledged and assigned (here)\
December 17, 2013 - reassigned to Sergeant Robert W. Sjosward and assigned case number 2013-045
December 17, 2013 - updated status requested (here)
June 12, 2014 - case dismissed on investigation's failure to disclose sufficient evidence (here)