NJ Cops Who Used Racial Slurs Against Black Residents Cash In on ‘Blue Privilege,’ Collecting $2.6M to Sit Home and Do Nothing
In a blatant example of Blue Privilege, three New Jersey cops suspended more than five years ago over the use of racial slurs against Black citizens have received more than $2.6 million in tax dollars as they collect their six-figure salaries, including annual raises, while sitting at home doing no police work. Even the Clark Township police officer who exposed the slurs through a secret recording was given a $400,000 settlement to remain quiet, allowing him to sit at home for two years before retiring and collecting his pension. Three New Jersey cops, from left to right, Captain Vincent Concina, Chief Pedro Matos and Sgt. Joseph Teston have received $2.6 million in salary during their five-year suspension over making racist remarks about Black citizens. (Photo: facebook.com/therobbieharvey) The three Clark Township cops suspended over the racial slurs in 2020 include the police chief referring to Black people as “n_ggers” and an internal affairs sergeant referring to a Black suspect as an “animal” with a big “monkey head” — as well as a captain who retaliated against the whistleblower. The recorded conversations also include Clark Township Mayor Sal Bonaccorso referring to Black people as “n_ggers” and “spooks.” Still, he remained on the job and was reelected in 2024 – only to resign earlier this year and plead guilty to unrelated corruption charges. He is now on probation. But the three suspended cops, Chief Pedro Matos, Captain Vincent Concina and Sgt. Joseph Teston will continue receiving their bloated salaries because they have each filed lawsuits that remain pending, blocking the disciplinary process that it usually takes to terminate officers, according to NJ Advance Media. ‘I Stood My Ground’: Black Navy Veteran Pulled Out of Car, Arrested After Recording a Cop In Public, But They Didn’t Expect the Fight That Came Next In April 2022, Sgt. Teston, who was the sergeant in charge of internal affairs, was arrested in New York City for striking an unarmed stranger in the head with a bottle during a sporting event before fleeing, but the charges were dismissed, according to a 43-page investigative report released in November 2023 by New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin. That same report revealed a long pattern of corruption and racism within the department, especially within the internal affairs department overseen by Teston. Allegations of abuses of the Internal Affairs function of a police department and selective enforcement of departmental rules, made it impossible, looking in from the outside, to know whether it was a problem of bad apples or a rotten orchard. These allegations necessitated the extraordinary step of superseding an entire police department in the midst of an ongoing global pandemic and a national reckoning on racism—when law enforcement resources were already stretched thin. The Whistleblower It all started when Clark police officer Antonio Manata began recording the racist comments, then attempted to file a complaint with the municipal attorney in September 2019, according to court records. However, word got back to the chief, and Manata was escorted out of the Clark Police Department and told never to return. In January 2020, he agreed to a $400,000 settlement to keep his mouth shut about the recordings in an agreement that allowed him to remain employed for another two years before retiring as a captain and collecting his pension. But NJ Advance Media obtained the recordings and published them in a news article in March 2022, which was when the scandal was made public. By then, the three officers had been suspended since July 2020, collecting their paychecks for doing nothing. The three cops filed lawsuits in February 2024 seeking to have the disciplinary charges against them dismissed, which remain pending. The lawsuits accuse the township, the county, and the state of violating the 45-day rule, a state law they claim requires internal affairs charges to be filed within 45 days of launching an investigation. But that is a myth, according to NJ Cops Magazine, a monthly publication published by the police union. “Such a magical technicality in favor of cops is mere fantasy,” the article states. History of Racism With a long history of racism, Clark Township in Union County is less than 5 square miles with a population of about 15,000 people, including 80 percent white people and less than 2 percent Black people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Back in the ’70s and ’80s, it was known as a “sundown town,” Latoya Kidd, a Black woman who has lived in Clark for three decades, told NJ Advance Media in 2022. “Over the years, I believed it died down but clearly not,” she said regarding the scandal involving police and the mayor. Reverend Charles Boyer, a prominent Black pastor who grew up in nearby Plainfield, remembered it as a town to not visit to avoid trouble. “You knew which towns you weren’t allowed in and which towns didn’t want you there,” Boyer told NJ.com. In 1985, an “unnamed perpetrator” burned a cross on the lawn of a Black family who had just moved into the neighborhood, the NJ Advance Media article states. In 1993, the New Jersey chapter of the NAACP filed a lawsuit against the township, accusing it of failing to hire a single Black person, which resulted in a settlement with the town agreeing to hire more Black people. But no Black people had been hired by 1997 when a Black woman who placed high on the civil service exam filed a lawsuit alleging she was denied employment with the police department because of her race, NJ Advance Media reported, without providing the woman’s name or the outcome of the lawsuit. Today, there still does not appear to be any Black officers working for the Clark Police Department, judging by the department’s Facebook page, which has published dozens of photos of its officers over the years.
