Bergen County Police Academy regains certification under new director

The Bergen County Police Academy has regained its certification and will now be overseen by the county executive's office instead of the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office.

This is the first step needed to reopen the academy, which trains hundreds of future law enforcement officers every six months, since the New Jersey Police Training Commission suspended its certification in December 2023 after two anonymous letters were received indicating that "possible serious rule infractions and Instructor Code of Conduct violations have been committed."

The academy is a unit of the county's Law and Public Safety Institute and operates as a partnership among Bergen County, its Prosecutor's Office and its Sheriff’s Office.

The offices of the prosecutor and sheriff will still have a presence as instructors when the next class resumes.

The next police academy class was scheduled to begin at the end of January, but it is unclear when it will start.

The county will work with the Police Training Commission to satisfy the remaining requirements to allow the resumption of classes at the academy, Bergen County Executive James Tedesco said in a statement.

Tedesco said he will assume full operational responsibility for the Bergen County Police Academy with direct civilian oversight. Deputy County Administrator and retired Paramus Police Chief Kenneth Ehrenberg will now also serve as the academy's transitional director and will oversee the curriculum and operation.

Ehrenberg's full-time responsibility will be the oversight of the Bergen County Police Academy, effective immediately, Tedesco said.

"I want to thank the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office and Sheriff’s Office for their partnership throughout this process and I look forward to working closely together to ensure that Bergen County Police Academy provides the highest quality training to keep our residents safe," Tedesco said. "I also would like to thank the Police Training Commission for taking this recent action and for their ongoing collaboration."

When the academy fulfills the Police Training Commission's criteria, officials can approve the academy's reopening date.

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What went wrong?

The New Jersey Police Training Commission received information regarding alleged rule violations occurring at the Bergen academy. It's unclear when, and what the rule violations include, but an item under "academy issues" in a Bergen County Police Academy Administrative Report appeared on the training commission's Dec. 6, 2023, meeting agenda.

A copy of the report obtained by NorthJersey.com, dated Nov. 21, 2023, noted that the agency received two anonymous letters in the previous week indicating that "possible serious rule infractions and Instructor Code of Conduct violations have been committed" by several academy command staff members and other instructors. The document did not specify what those offenses were.

"These allegations will be fully investigated with the findings being fully recorded and reported to the Police Training Commission," said the report, signed by field investigator Donald Robertella.

Robertella noted in the training commission report that he was assigned to monitor and inspect operations daily at the police academy beginning Oct. 16, 2023. The report said the investigator made a series of procedural recommendations to academy administrators, but "no unusual incidents were observed or reported" through Nov. 17.

"We take all allegations of misconduct seriously, and we immediately began an investigation into those allegations," Bergen County Prosecutor Mark Musella said in a statement this month.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Bergen County Police Academy regains certification with new director