Roselle’s police chief was reinstated last month after being accused of using a homophobic slur and making other inappropriate comments toward colleagues. Chief Stacey Williams has now returned to his position in the Roselle Police Department. Williams had been fired, and his law enforcement license was suspended in 2024.
Williams appealed, and in May 2025 his punishment was reduced to a 30-day suspension by Administrative Law Judge Thomas R. Betancourt. The state Civil Service Commission said in its decision that it “accepted and adopted” Betancourt’s findings and recommendations.
“In this matter, the Commission finds that, while abhorrent, the appellant’s inappropriate and offensive language, given the context, is not so egregious to warrant removal from employment absent an application of progressive discipline,” the commission wrote in the decision, adding that Williams had a long career without a significant disciplinary history.
However, the commission acknowledged that police officers are held to a higher standard and emphasized that its modification of the penalty “is in no way condoning the appellant’s misconduct. Indeed, the 30 working day suspension imposed, a weighty penalty, should serve to impress upon the appellant the gravity of his actions as well as serve as a clear warning that any further inappropriate conduct may lead to more severe disciplinary action, up to removal from employment.”
Betancourt found that Williams used a derogatory term for a gay man on or around Oct. 22, 2022, when referring to a friend while telling a story to subordinate officers, which Delmonte Pryor, an openly gay officer, overheard. Another officer also accused Williams
of using a homophobic slur in a conversation they had at a crime scene. This, along with other concerns raised by the union, led to Williams being fired from the position he held for 31 years.
Williams claimed during a hearing that if he had used the slur it was not directed toward any specific person in a homophobic manner. Subsequent testimony convinced the commission Williams did use the language in question.
“Regarding the removal for the appellant’s use of inappropriate language, there does not appear to be any material substantive dispute about the misconduct. Indeed, the appellant essentially admitted to the language alleged,” the commission wrote.
Pryor filed a lawsuit on Nov. 18, 2024, in state Superior Court in Union County against the Borough of Roselle and other defendants identified in the suit as “John and Jane Does 1-10.” The suit alleges violations of the state’s Law Against Discrimination, the New Jersey Civil Rights Act, and the New Jersey Constitution. The suit claims, among other things, that since at least 2015, Roselle “has been aware of and yet fostered, permitted, encouraged, and failed to repair an extremely homophobic and hostile-to-gay-men work environment which subjected Plaintiff, a gay man, to a hostile work environment.”
Peter Paris, an attorney for the Roselle Police Benevolent Association, responded to the commission’s decision: “It is outrageous that the Civil Service Commission condoned the homophobic conduct of this police chief. A 30 day suspension for such egregious behavior from the head of a municipal department just goes to show that the LGBTQ community has a long way to go.”
Neither Williams nor Mayor Donald A. Shaw responded to requests for comment.
