Jersey Journal

Earlier this year, a Hudson County Superior Court judge dismissed a former Jersey City cop’s whistleblower suit against the city itself, Jersey City’s public safety director, two former police chiefs, and eight other police officials. The retired cop, Frank DeFazio, claimed that an anti-government clique operating within the department’s Emergency Services Unit had targeted him for harassment, and that he had been subject to retribution from high-level police officials after he complained.

In February 2012, DeFazio filed a “hostile work environment” complaint with Internal Affairs against ESU Sgts. Clyde Banks and Thomas Johnson. In an act of retribution, DeFazio claimed, Banks filed a “neglect of duty” complaint against him. After being interrogated by Internal Affairs, DeFazio was ordered to surrender his weapons and undergo a fitness-for-duty exam, which he passed. In his suit, DeFazio said that at one point he felt so intimidated that he began unsnapping his gun when he went to work. In his complaint, DeFazio claimed to have been the victom of

...a continuous pattern of harassment, which began with the actions of Banks and Johnston by alienating co-employees and creating gang-like mentality among co-employees to accomplish their agenda...Further, the supervisors’ [sic] condoned these actions and retaliated against plaintiff Defazio.

But in January, Hudson County Superior Court Judge Francis B. Schultz dismissed those charges—which implicated Public Safety Director James Shea, former police chief Tom Comey, and former police chief Robert Cowan—on the grounds that the alleged harassment, which DeFazio maintains began in 2009, happened too long before DeFazio brought the suit, in 2014, by which point he was retired. And on Wednesday, two Jersey City police officers were cleared of the remaining charges of harassment, intimidation, and age discrimination.

According to DeFazio’s suit, Sgt. Banks “immediately began causing friction” when he was assigned to the ESU in September 2009. Banks was on the overnight shift, and began advocating for higher performance and shooting range qualifications. He criticized those who worked during the day as “whiners, crybabies and waiting-to-die crew.”

Banks didn’t dispute that he had called for higher standards, saying that it was a result of fellow ESU officer Marc Anthony DiNardo’s death in a shootout the preceding July. “When that happened, that hit everyone at home, and the chief, everyone, wanted the training,” Banks said after the verdict came down. Per a report by NJ.com:

“I spoke to the inspector, and I said, ‘Everyone has to amp up on training.’ [DeFazio] was in favor of that, too, until he had to perform. He felt like he shouldn’t have to do the training. He felt like he should have to sit around and do nothing. I am a proactive police officer.”

Banks, of course, was relieved to be cleared of any wrongdoing with respect to DeFazio. “It felt great,” he said. “I had not doubt. There really was nothing.”

Except there was something to DeFazio’s allegations: The existence of an anti-government clique within the JCPD was first reported by the Jersey Journal in 2013, after an anonymous letter was sent to the paper alleging that some ESU officers were wearing patches declaring their allegiance to the Three Percenter movement.

The loosely organized Three Percenters believe that only three percent of colonists participated in the American Revolution, and that they are part of a similar revolutionary vanguard in a contemporary struggle against oppression—that is, against the federal government. Anyone can declare themselves a Three Percenter, but there are also more organized groups, predominantly in the Pacific Northwest.

“They were separating themselves from the others in the unit and we put a stop to it immediately,” JCPD Deputy Chief Peter Nalbach told the Journal. From that same report:

The letter also says some official ESU patches were altered by adding “3%” to them. The letter also includes a picture of such a patch.

Finally, the letter includes a patch with the image of a skull and says ESU officers wore the skull patch and Three-Percenters patches while on patrol.

Nalbach confirmed that officers were wearing a patch and said “It was removed because we don’t allow unofficial patches.”

The letter also includes an image of a Three-Percenters flag and said it was hung in the ESU gym. Nalbach said he was not aware of a flag.

The flag photographed was the Nyberg Battle Flag, embraced by Three Percenters since at least 2009. DeFazio’s suit alleges that this was the group of men against whom he attempted to speak out and who in turn targeted him. “I drink whiskey. It keeps me angry so I don’t blindly follow sheep. You need to wake up before you’re lead to slaughter,” one of the officers named in the initial suit wrote in a recent (now-deleted) Facebook comment, a screenshot of which was obtained by Gawker.

Accused officer’s name redacted in black.

“They wanted to get rid of the day tour guys, the older guys with more experience,” DeFazio’s attorney, Theodore Campbell, said in his opening statements last month. “They marketed themselves Three Percenters. They began calling [the older officers] ‘Those waiting to die,’ and ‘lazy.’ They began posting signs.”

Meanwhile, defense attorney Matthew Collins said “the concept of the Three Percenters, to get people to join them, originally it was a joke.” The idea “was to bring the group together, motivate them.”

After the verdict came down, Banks said the patches had nothing to do with the anti-government group: “It was from a motivational speaker that said only 3 percent of people are motivated, want to do things, want to move forward.”