NYC Suburb Faces Suit Over Racial Traffic Stop Disparities

Though Black residents make up only 1.5% of the population of Clark Township, NJ, more than 22% of the drivers stopped by the local police from 2015-2020 were Black.

That fact, along with other eye-popping statistics, are central to a civil rights lawsuit filed by New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin Thursday claiming that officials in the New York City suburb have discriminated based on race.

When discussing traffic enforcement with a police lieutenant in 2019, then-Mayor Sal Bonaccorso used a racial slur while telling him to “keep chasing” Black people “out of town,” said the complaint, filed in state ...