A former Plainsboro Police officer is suing the township and PBA Local 319, the township’s police union, alleging that harassment and threats from his fellow officers forced him into early retirement. ##M:[more]##Steven Stryker, an officer since 1987, is claiming that he was the subject of threats from other officers in the department, and suffered from vandalism to his office and personal belongings.
According to the civil suit, filed on January 25 in state Superior Court, Stryker claims that his problems began in 1993 after he revealed that he had completed treatment for alcoholism, and offered to be available to talk with other officers with problems in their lives, particularly substance abuse.
That suit says that instead of taking Stryker up on the offer, the other officers “demeaned him,” and “further harassed him by making repeated allegations that he was gay.” Stryker also alleges that the harassment worsened in 1999 after he would not participate in a work action called for by the PBA refusing to enforce motor vehicle laws or write traffic tickets.
Stryker says that as a result of the continued harassment, and the failure of the township, “to protect him from his harassers,” he was forced to retire after only 20 years of service. In addition to monetary damages, Stryker is also asking that a receiver be appointed by the court to revise the PBA’s bylaws to “cleanse” the local’s operations of the “cancer of discrimination.”
Mayor Peter Cantu and Township Administrator Robert Sheehan declined to comment. PBA President Nicholas Procaccini, who is also named in the suit, could not be reached for comment.
