Details Of New Brunswick Shootings Must Be Released, Judge Rules

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — This July, a Superior Court judge ruled that the New Brunswick Police Department must release additional information on shootings that have taken place in the city in the past two years.

The journalist who requested the information is Charlie Kratovil, who runs the news site New Brunswick Today.

In February and March of 2021, Kratovil submitted five OPRA requests to the New Brunswick Police Department seeking information about aggravated assaults, particularly shootings. What Kratovil asked for was all the information on all aggravated assaults that occurred in New Brunswick in January and February 2021.

The New Brunswick Police Dept., through its public information officer, responded with some of the information, but withheld other information, asserting it was protected as part of an investigation in progress.

The city provided two spreadsheets listing eight incidents in January 2021 and fifteen incidents in February 2021, giving the case number, date of the incident, the address where the crime occurred and the criminal charges related to the crime.

The information police refused to share was the weapon involved; whether there had been an arrest; information about the victims and suspects, as well as the names of which police officers were investigating.

In April of 2021, Kratovil sued the New Brunswick city clerk and New Brunswick Police Department.

The case went to trial and later that year, the trial court initially ruled in the city's favor, saying that the police department did not have to provide information about the 20 shootings, including the types of weapons involved.

But on July 13, three New Jersey Superior Court judges reversed that decision, saying the police did have to release some additional information, but not all.

"The city had an obligation to inform (Kratovil) when the investigation concluded or publicly disclosed charges had been filed," wrote the judges in their July 13 decision, which you can read here. "Plaintiff would then have been entitled to receive the previously withheld information required to be provided under OPRA."

Kratovil running for second time to be New Brunswick mayor

Kratovil is an independent who is challenging New Brunswick Mayor Jim Cahill for election this year, along with Republican candidate Maria Powell. Cahill has been the mayor of New Brunswick for the past 31 years, one of the longest times in office of any elected official in the state.

Kratovil previously ran for mayor several years ago and lost. Kratovil and Powell have both called on Cahill to publicly debate them, and Cahill has so far not responded.

Throughout his second mayoral campaign, Kratovil has long maintained that crime in New Brunswick is increasing and that the city is seeing more shootings.

New Brunswick Police did not respond to requests for comment on either Kratovil's claim that the city has gotten more dangerous, or on the judge's recent ruling.

Kratovil said he counted the July court decision as a win for more transparency from New Brunswick Police.

“It shouldn’t take over a year and an Appellate Court case to get this basic information, but I won’t stop fighting until our police department is transparent, accountable, and proactive in preventing violent crimes, and protecting the people of New Brunswick,” said Kratovil.