In September 2022, Clinton Township, New Jersey, Patrol Officer Stephen Hars responded to two separate calls involving wild animals. On September 9, he responded to a report of a potentially rabid raccoon. During that incident, Hars fired twelve rounds before killing the animal. Sixteen days later, he responded to a report of a sick fox. In that encounter, he discharged thirteen rounds before the fox was killed.
After each incident, Hars completed a weapons-discharge form. For the fox incident, he reported firing six rounds. When a supervisor instructed him to rewrite the form because it was “messy,” Hars again reported that he had fired six rounds. After Chief Thomas DeRosa reviewed the report and questioned the number, Hars watched body-worn camera footage and acknowledged that he had actually fired thirteen rounds. He then amended the report. The discrepancy caused supervisors to review the earlier raccoon incident, where body-worn camera footage showed that Hars had fired twelve rounds despite reporting only four.
The Township issued a Preliminary Notice of Disciplinary Action seeking termination for gross misuse of firearms and false reporting. Following a departmental hearing, a hearing officer sustained nearly all charges and recommended termination. The Hearing Officer rejected Hars’s claim that the reporting errors were accidental, emphasizing “the gross disparity in the number of rounds reported ([six and four]) vers[u]s the actual number discharged ([thirteen and twelve]).” The Hearing Officer also cited Hars’s own statement that he was “embarrassed by the excessive number of shots it was taking him to dispatch the fox, thus highlighting the large number.”
The Hearing Officer concluded it was “clear” that “Hars‘[s] underreporting was intentional and even if he did not know the exact number of rounds because of his sloppy and haphazard conduct, he certainly realized that the number was greater than reported.” The decision further found that several of the sustained disciplinary charges corresponded to potential criminal offenses, including false statements and tampering with public records. Although criminal charges were never filed, the Hearing Officer determined that tampering with public records “most closely track[ed] the factual pattern.”
After the Township adopted the recommendation and terminated Hars, he sought review through New Jersey PERC’s Special Disciplinary Arbitration (SDA) process. The Township argued that SDA was unavailable because the allegations involved conduct that would constitute criminal offenses. PERC agreed. In denying Hars’s request, PERC noted that the Hearing Officer had found that Hars “lied in official police reports about the number of rounds he discharged from his weapon on two separate calls in September … 2022.” PERC also explained that the governing statute “does not require a formal criminal investigation, the filing of formal criminal charges, or citation to the criminal statutes in the disciplinary investigation or disciplinary charges.”
Hars moved for reconsideration, relying in part on a prosecutor’s office review concluding that criminal prosecution was not warranted and testimony from DeRosa that the conduct was “not enough to charge criminally.” PERC nevertheless adhered to its original determination, and Hars appealed.
The Appellate Division affirmed.
Reviewing the statutory framework, the Court explained that officers in non-civil-service municipalities may pursue arbitration in lieu of judicial review only when the disciplinary charges do not involve conduct that would constitute a criminal offense. The Court concluded that PERC correctly determined Hars was ineligible for arbitration because he was alleged to have “knowingly made false statements in official police department records,” conduct that would constitute tampering with public records under New Jersey law.
The Court rejected Hars’s argument that he could not be excluded from arbitration because he had never been arrested, charged, indicted, or convicted. “The fact that there was no formal criminal investigation, filing of formal criminal charges, or criminal conviction does not alter the outcome,” the Court wrote. Instead, “[t]he statute precludes arbitration for charges where the underlying conduct would constitute a criminal offense, regardless of whether any criminal process commenced.”
The Court also found no basis to disturb PERC’s denial of reconsideration. Although PERC lacked a formal reconsideration procedure for SDA determinations, the record showed that Director Mary E. Hennessy-Shotter considered the substance of Hars’s request and rejected it on the merits. Finding nothing arbitrary, capricious, or unreasonable in PERC’s handling of the matter, the Court affirmed
Township of Clinton and Stephen Hars, 2026 WL 1983288 (N.J. App. Div. July 9, 2026).