Multiple Officers Disciplined For Leaving Teens Locked in Police Van

Fort Lee officials say that at least eight police officers have been disciplined for their actions on the night of March 26, when five minors were left locked in a police transport van outside police headquarters in freezing temperatures, without food, water or bathroom facilities for more than 14 hours after a house party bust.

Three Fort Lee police officers were suspended with pay almost immediately after the incident pending disciplinary hearings. Police also launched an internal investigation that Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich said was concluded in late April.

Borough administrator Peggy Thomas told Patch this week that a complete investigation has now taken place, and that three officers received “major disciplinary action,” while “about five more got minor disciplinary action."

Thomas said the attorney general's guidelines bar borough officials from releasing further details on the incident, and that all disciplinary actions have been completed. 

“In other words, there are no pending hearings or anything,” Thomas said.

Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich said last week that at least one demotion was involved along with “multiple days of suspension without pay.”

Sokolich said that based on the police investigation, “a conclusion was reached as to what occurred, and it was determined that it was human error—nonetheless, an error.”

He said all of the officers involved were reprimanded or punished “in one way or another” based on the recommendations of Fort Lee Police Chief Thomas Ripoli.

“Ultimately, that is a recommendation to our borough administrator, Peggy Thomas,” Sokolich said. “And once Peggy had it to confirm and affirm what the conclusions of the chief were, we reached agreement with many of these officers as to the punishment.”

Sokolich said he’s glad “this phase is behind us,” and that he thinks the police department and community “has some healing to do.” He also said there was no “adjustment in protocol” within the police department “except to make sure that standard operating procedures are followed next time.”

“There wasn’t a void that was found to exist that caused the issue,” Sokolich said. “All the appropriate safeguards in theory are in place; they just weren’t applied.”

In the early morning hours of March 26, police responded to a home on Arcadian Way to break up what officials called a "raucous" house party. Several minors were taken into custody, according to interviews with parents and teens after the incident, but five were forgotten in a police van outside headquarters until 3 p.m. 

Borough attorney Lee Cohen said there are two reasons why full details, including officers’ names and specific disciplinary action, couldn’t be released. The first is that the case involves minors, “and they’re entitled to confidentiality based on New Jersey law,” he said.

“Even if that were not the case, the attorney general guidelines, which are very detailed and on point, tell us what we can and cannot release concerning police disciplinary actions, and we have followed them and frankly released as much information as possible, trying to maximize what we could release and still be in the guidelines,” Cohen said. “There is no cover up here, nor is there any desire to hide anything. But we have to obey the law.”

Cohen said police department employees are considered “sworn personnel” by the attorney general’s office and therefore fall under different guidelines than public employees when it comes to public records. He also said that “at no point will this information be released to the public.”

“I feel confident we have gone—at the very least—to the very razor’s edge of the attorney general’s guidelines,” Cohen said. “We’ve gone as far as we possibly can go. The matter is closed.”

Sokolich said he “dare not comment,” on any potential or pending litigation against the borough or police department because doing so could prejudice “the rights of either the police department, the community or—quite frankly—the kids.”

“We’ve been contacted by attorneys, but I don’t know what their intentions are,” he said.

However, attorney Nancy Lucianna, who represents Adam Kim, one of the teens left locked in the van, made her intentions clear. She filed a notice of claim—a pre-requisite to filing a lawsuit—in April, but told Patch it’s “premature” to file a lawsuit “prior to six months from the date [of the incident].”

“The law says that the municipality has six months to investigate the claim and to give us a voluntary offer of settlement, and that if they don’t, after the six month period of time, you can file the lawsuit,” Lucianna said, adding that the notice of claim has to be filed within 90 days but that a lawsuit can be filed up to two years after the incident.

Lucianna also told the Fort Lee Suburbanite that her client received a letter from Fort Lee police saying that disciplinary action had been imposed on five officers, but Cohen told the paper that the number of officers disciplined was closer to 10 or 11.

“If they don’t give us an offer of settlement, we’re definitely going to file,” Lucianna told Patch.