Bergen County Sheriff Resigns Over Racist Remarks

The sheriff of the most populous county in New Jersey resigned Friday, a day after a recording in which he made racist remarks about black people and Sikhs was published by WNYC.

The sheriff of Bergen County, Michael Saudino, a Democrat who was in his third term, had initially issued an apology Thursday evening but declined to step down even after numerous public officials — including Gov. Philip D. Murphy, Rep. Josh Gottheimer, whose district includes a large part of Bergen County, and Gurbir Grewal, the state attorney general — called for his swift resignation.

But on Friday afternoon, facing mounting pressure, Saudino and four deputies submitted their resignations, effective immediately.

The recording was made at Murphy’s inauguration in Trenton. Soon after the governor’s speech, Saudino disparaged Murphy’s proposal to legalize marijuana, saying “in other words, let the blacks come in.”

“Smoke their marijuana, do this do that, and don’t worry about it,” Saudino said, according to the WNYC report. “You know, we’ll tie the hands of cops.”

He also said the only reason Murphy nominated Grewal, the first Sikh-American in the country to be a state attorney general, was because of “the turban.”

The comments brought condemnation across the state, but Saudino initially offered only an apology and made no mention of leaving his position.

“These remarks are not representative of the person that I am and they are in no way consistent with the manner in which I have conducted my life personally and as a law enforcement professional with over 46 years of service to the residents of Bergen County,” he said in a statement Thursday night.

But Saudino did not show up to work Friday, and speculation began to swirl about whether he would step down.

County sheriff is an elected position in New Jersey. A replacement will be appointed by Murphy. The department, which has more than 600 employees, will be run in the interim by two officials in the department.

After Saudino’s resignation, Murphy said he intended to “appoint an interim sheriff who can rebuild the public’s trust.”

“With the resignation of Sheriff Saudino, we can now begin the process of restoring faith in the Bergen County Sheriff’s Office after so much of it was so quickly eroded,” Murphy said in a statement. “The Bergen County Sheriff’s Office is home to countless dedicated officers who no doubt were as horrified and disappointed by their former boss’s comments as we were.”