2 Years After George Floyd: What Changed In NJ, What Stayed The Same?

NEW JERSEY — Two years after the murder of George Floyd, several things have changed on New Jersey's surface. A statue of Floyd now stands outside Newark City Hall. The state replaced the "freeholder" name with "commissioners" to represent elected county officials. Juneteenth became both a state and federal holiday.

But the root of the issue remains police brutality and racial injustice, according to activists. And while the state has changed some policing policies since then-Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin murdered Floyd on May 25, 2020, other reform efforts have faced opposition while others fell through.

Black people were 7.5 times more likely to get killed by police than white people in New Jersey from 2013-21, according to Mapping Police Violence, which combines public data with information from different databases that monitor fatal police encounters.

Certain issues make police brutality difficult to historically quantify. The FBI only began collecting use-of-force data in 2019. Lack of participation from law-enforcement agencies submitting data made the FBI consider shutting down its use-of-force database, according to the federal Government Accountability Office. Only 41 percent of agencies nationwide submitted 2019 data, the FBI says.

New Jersey allows officers to use force under several circumstances. But when it should be allowed and how to minimize it becoming necessary has been a controversial subject.

Here are some ways New Jersey has (and hasn't) changed since the murder of Floyd.

New Laws And Policies

The calls for justice that ensued after Floyd's death prompted New Jersey toward several police reforms. Here's what's happened at the legislative level:

• In November 2020, New Jersey passed a law requiring every uniformed officer to wear a body camera.
• The state established a crime for making false 911 calls with the purpose of intimidating or harassing based on race or other protected classes.
• A 2020 state law requires and establishes a framework for each law-enforcement agency to establish minority-recruitment programs. The New Jersey Office of the Attorney General monitors each agency's progress in minority recruitment and will release data annually.

But some of the changes faced pushback. An amendment to New Jersey's body-worn-camera policies, which Gov. Murphy signed into law Jan. 18, allows cops to look at their own body-camera footage before writing police reports. They may still be required to write initial summaries from memory under certain circumstances, such as fatal encounters.

Police unions pushed for the law. The state Police Benevolent Association said New Jersey's prior policies hampered their ability to write "clear and detailed reports."

The new law, however, has faced criticism from activists and organizations.

"The problem with allowing officers to view body camera footage before they write reports is that it becomes impossible to later separate what an officer remembers from what they learned by watching the tape," said Tess Borden, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey. "The previous law is a better one. It required officers to write their reports before viewing footage and allowed them to make any additions or clarifications after viewing."

New Jersey also updated its use-of-force policy for the first time in two decades. The new policy emphasized de-escalation techniques and prohibited officers from using force except as a last resort.

The guidance also established a "duty to intervene," requiring officers to intercede if they see another cop engage in illegal or excessive force against a civilian. On paper, the policy prohibits chokeholds and shooting at a moving vehicle but allows officers to do either under special or "narrowly limited circumstances. For instance, police in New Jersey can still choke someone or strike their head or neck if it's "immediately necessary to protect the officer or another person from imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury."

Gathering New Info

Several of the reforms from the AG's office pertain to information-gathering. That includes recent reports on officers who faced "major discipline" — information previously protected under New Jersey law.

Major discipline constitutes officers fired, demoted in rank or suspended for more than five days, according to state policy. Days after Floyd's death, then-Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal called for public availability of police-discipline records.

But the AG's office faced a lengthy legal battle. But the New Jersey Supreme Court's unanimous ruling found state authorities could identify officers subjected to "major" discipline in the past year and going forward. But police disciplined prior can seek a judge to try and block the public disclosure.

In June, State PBA President Pat Colligan called the Supreme Court's decision "frustrating and disappointing." But Colligan praised a provision that allows officers who agreed to discipline under the assumption that it would remain confidential, to seek a judge's approval to keep the records secret.

The AG's office has released discipline reports that cover the second half of 2020 and all of 2021. Last year, 86 officers in New Jersey were fired, while nearly 400 received major discipline, according to the AG's latest report.

But much of the information about what led to each incident remains hidden to the public. Each report lists the officer's name and the charge they sustained, such as "neglect of duty" or "improper use of force." But many of the one-or-two-sentence descriptions of what happened simply repeat for what each officer was punished. Agencies still hold the right to shield documents from internal-affairs investigations from the public.

The AG's office did release a use-of-force database, which documents the use of force from officers around the state. Agencies must report each time they use force against a civilian to the portal within 24 hours of each incident.

Last month, the AG's office unveiled a dashboard that will monitor each police agency's minority recruitment. Because of a shortened first reporting period, the available data only reflects current officers (as of Dec. 31). The agency said it will also include applicant and promotional information after the first full calendar year of reporting.

Not Enough, Activists Say

Two years later, several activists and community leaders around New Jersey say the state has failed in the root issues of police brutality and racial inequality.

"The current system used to report force (in New Jersey) is seriously flawed," said Dr. Charles F. Boyer, founder of the grassroots Salvation for Social Justice. "At least 62 times, the forms were so sloppy officers accidentally marked themselves as dead which indicates an absence of care or attention to the process."

Boyer cited NJ Advance Media's "Force Report" — a database that shows 43,629 police incidents involving force from 2012-16, when the information wasn't readily available to the public. He also pointed to a recent $10 million settlement for a Camden City man paralyzed from the neck down after an encounter with police.

Lawsuits around the nation to settle allegations of police misconduct have amounted to more than $3.2 billion in settlements from 2010-20, according to The Washington Post.

Scrutiny of police budgets has amplified since the murder of Floyd. Police spending in New Jersey significantly outpaces investments in Health and Human Services, according to an October report from New Jersey Police Perspective.

The research most closely examined Elizabeth and Gloucester County — the former a larger, urban city and the latter a more rural collection of smaller towns. Elizabeth's police funding made up 19 percent of its 2018 municipal budget and has increased by $1.8 million per year since then.

Gloucester County's police department's vary from 14 to 25 percent of local spending, with an average of 20 percent, according to the report. Local government's in Gloucester County appropriated more than $77 million to police departments in Fiscal Year 2020.

Brooke Lewis — the report's primary author and associate counsel at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice — also criticized a state Supreme Court decision that prevents Newark's Civilian Complaint Review Board from holding subpoena powers. Read more: Newark Tries To Bring Battle Over Policing To US Supreme Court

"It is long past time that New Jersey create a culture of police accountability through passing foundational police reform legislation," Lewis said, "including banning chokeholds, eliminating qualified immunity, empowering civilian review boards with subpoena powers and creating a policy protecting the First Amendment rights of people who record police conduct. These measures are necessary and achievable."

(The AG's office did issue a policy in December clarifying that the right to record police activity falls within First-Amendment rights.)

More recently, two teens fought at the Bridgewater Commons mall. A video shows local police kneeling on and handcuffing the Black teen, while the white teen sat on the couch. The Somerset County Prosecutor's Office had 45 days to investigate the Bridgewater officers' handling of the incident. The deadline passed, and the AG's office told Patch last month that the incident remains under review. Read more: Probe Into Bridgewater's Police Handling Of Mall Fight Continues

Racial disparities are also apparent in several non-policing aspects of New Jersey life, even compared to other states. The Garden State has the 12th-worst racial wealth gap in the nation, according to WalletHub.

"The U.S. has a major racial wealth gap problem," said Laura Sullivan, of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice. "New Jersey has a racial wealth gap disaster." Read more: Racial Gaps Still Plague NJ, Advocates Say

Even a more symbolic gesture of New Jersey's efforts against racial inequality faced obstacles. About a week after Newark unveiled a statue of George Floyd, someone vandalized the statue with blackface and white-supremacist graffiti. Read more: Floyd Statue In Newark Vandalized With White Supremacist Graffiti

"This is not just about George Floyd," said Newark Mayor Ras Baraka. "Ot's a deliberate effort to push back against and ultimately dismantle systems of hatred, racism, and white supremacy. We celebrate those efforts in Newark, and will continue to do so, despite the ignorance that has reared its ugly head."

Correction: An earlier version of this article did not clarify that the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General has stated that recording police activity is legal and falls within First-Amendment rights.