A training conference attended by more than 200 New Jersey police officers featured “offensive and discriminatory content” against women and racial minorities, and promoted potentially unlawful police tactics, the state comptroller has found.
In a report released on Wednesday, the state comptroller's office portrayed an environment in which speakers and instructors at the 2021 Atlantic City conference demeaned women and minorities while appearing to endorse “questionable” policing tactics, including traffic stop practices the comptroller deemed unconstitutional — such as pulling a driver over on a “hunch” or a “gut feeling.”
The six-day conference, which almost 1,000 officers from around the country attended, had in its audience more than 200 officers from various New Jersey agencies and municipalities — and that at least $75,000 in public funds was spent for them to attend, not including paid time off or training days used for the event.
“Quality police training can play a crucial role in ensuring law enforcement is equipped with the knowledge, expertise, and experience to navigate complex and difficult situations safely,” the report reads. “But training that encourages officers to employ techniques that violate civil liberties, disparage legitimate public safety initiatives, undermine police reform efforts, and promote a toxic culture in which women and racial and ethnic minorities are made to feel unwelcome — this is not training that should be paid for with New Jersey’s public money.”
The report said that speakers at the conference made more than 100 “discriminatory and harassing” comments, “with repeated references to speakers’ genitalia, lewd gestures, and demeaning quips about women and minorities.”
The event also romanticized a “militaristic” approach to policing, while presenters “spoke disparagingly of the internal affairs process; promoted an ‘us vs. them’ approach; and espoused views and tactics that would undermine almost a decade of police reform efforts in New Jersey” — including those meant to built trust with vulnerable communities and de-escalate conflicts — according to the comptroller.
“These instructors encouraged officers to adopt a warrior/enemy mentality, rather than the 'guardian' approach that is more consistent with police reform initiatives,” the report reads.
Street Cop Training, the company behind the event, said in a written statement it was imposing stricter standards on "colloquial and jocular language" during training sessions.
"There is not one single instance in the OSC Report where we have advocated any practice that is inconsistent with quality policing," company founder and CEO Dennis Benigno said in a the statement. "Isolated excerpts taken out of context from a week-long training are not reflections of the overall quality of the education that Street Cop provides."
Benigno was among several speakers who spoke of a protected class in a disparaging or hostile manner, according to the report.
“I’m going to f------ die [at] like, 91 with hookers and cocaine around me,” Benigno said in video footage of the conference, while giving a presentation titled “15 Tactics for Greater Success.” “Why wouldn’t that be your goal and objective? Like if I’m on vacation in Colombia — money — and these girls are not as wealthy, and they need to do things to make money,” he said, trailing off as the crowd laughed.
The report also pointed to remarks from Benigno that “made light of police leadership pursuing sexual relationships with young police dispatchers, asked if it would be weird to perform a sex act on an officer that endorsed his training, and talked about the size of his penis.” The report says he told attendees about a female suspect who was "not a ‘runway model,’” and in another instance, “told someone who criticized his training not to be a ‘f------ b----.’”
Several other speakers were identified by the comptroller in video footage released with the report. Another speaker appeared to “glorify” violence by law enforcement, saying “I love violence. I love fighting. I love shooting. And I f------ love freedom,” the report said.
The comptroller's office referred its findings to several offices, including the office of state Attorney General Matt Platkin, who said his office had formally referred the findings to the Division on Civil Rights.
“My office is reviewing the report issued today by the Office of the State Comptroller and its recommendations,” Platkin said in a statement. “The conference in question, which took place before my tenure began, included instruction and comments that are deeply troubling, potentially unconstitutional and certainly unacceptable.”
Platkin said that once the Office of Law Enforcement Professional Standards — a division of his office — learned about the training, it instructed New Jersey State Police that the training “was not appropriate, would not be funded by the Department of Law and Public Safety, and should not be attended by NJSP members.”
Correction: Due to an editing error, this story has been updated to correctly attribute a statement from Street Cop Training to its CEO, Dennis Benigno.
