Parsippany Police Hid Violations, Enforced Ticket Quotas: Lawsuit

PARSIPPANY, NJ - Sgt. Matthew LaManna's "by the book" approach to law enforcement has put him at odds with his colleagues in the Parsippany Police Department over fellow officers hiding violations, enforcing an illegal ticket quota and a lawsuit filed last month claims his career has suffered because of it.

According to the March 11 filing in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Morris County, LaManna, a member of the Parsippany Police Department since 2007, has spoken out when fellow officers dismissed or covered up violations, called attention to abuses of overtime and took issue with department quota system to increase criminal arrests and summonses.

The complaint notes that because LaManna spoke up he was subjected to bullying, unwarranted and inappropriate criticism of his work performance, denial of overtime opportunities, unfavorable shift changes, inappropriate dsciplinary actions against him and a failure to promote him.

LaManna, who was promoted to sergeant in 2014, maintains that his "refusal to look the other way" and to "just get along" with other officers by ignoring violations runs contrary to the "internal culture" of the police department and has brought on a diminishing and undermining of his supervisory authority and has impeded him from effectively carrying out his responsibilities.

The lawsuit is seeking damages from Police Chief Andrew Miller, the Parsippany-Troy Hills Police Department and the town of Parsippany-Troy Hills.

A spokesperson for the Township of Parsippany-Troy Hills told Patch they do not comment on pending litigation, as did Parsippany-Troy Hills Police Department Public Information Officer Sergeant Brian Conover.

LaManna's suit claims that he confronted a lieutenant who instructed officers to falsify accident paperwork dealing with a crash of another sergeant's daughter in 2015.

That lieutenant, according to the complaint, told to LaManna "mind your own [expletive] business and stay out of it."

Reporting that incident to a superior officer went nowhere, LaManna said. The suit said that attempting to report a fellow officers for misusing sick time and sleeping on the job, and trying to get an arrest warrant being served on the nephew of a former Parsippany cop transferred to another Municipal Court due to the potential conflicts were also received poorly. In the latter case, the complaint claims it ended with the charges being dismissed.

Another point in the suit says that the department implemented a points system for issuing summonses to people on the street, which would be in violation of state law.

According to LaManna, the system "essentially created a performance quota that incentivized and resulted in officers conducting questionable arrests and illegal searches and seizures in an effort to meet the required performance quota levels."

In October of 2020, Morristown P.B.A local 43 took to social media claiming officers were being retaliated against by town administration for not meeting a ticket quota, something that Chief Darnell Richardson strongly disagreed with. According to the Union post, officers were assigned to mandatory walking posts at night but not during the day. The union noted that these officers are on foot with no vehicles to respond to emergencies or medical equipment such as narcan for overdoses, oxygen, defibrillator (AED for cardiac arrests), and other tools commonly used.

"Spreading false information on social media is reckless, unprofessional, and completely irresponsible," Richardson said at the time. "Deployment decisions in the Bureau are solely in response to community needs. As Chief, It is my responsibility to decide what is necessary to protect this community. Patrol tactics and strategies are assessed on an ongoing basis."

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