New Jersey Police Chief Allegedly Says He'd Like to Kill City Council President

A New Jersey police chief is facing scrutiny for threatening the town council president and calling her "one hell of a b****," NJ.com reported.

"I'd like to kill her, but I can't," Englewood Cliffs Police Chief Michael Cioffi allegedly said about Council President Carrol McMorrow in a January 2017 recording, which was played during a council meeting on Wednesday.

"Just imagine, our chief of police, on duty, carrying a borough-issued gun, discussing with a borough employee whether or not ending my life would be worth it," McMorrow said. "I am extremely concerned about this conversation."

Lawyer James Patuto, who has represented Cioffi previously, said the comments were merely workplace jokes alluding to tension between town authorities. "The chief has been harassed for the last two years by the mayor and council president," he said. "No one is proud of these things, but it's normal...workplace talk when you have an ill-tempered chief executive who just doesn't follow the law."

He also said the police chief—whose $229,000 salary is fifth-highest in the state, Northjersey.com reported—recorded himself as a precautionary measure. More than 120 tapes of Cioffi contain 40-plus hours of recording.

"He made the tapes to protect himself against the mayor," Patuto said, adding that the mayor had accused the police chief of "all types of nefarious things."

Last year, Cioffi sued Mayor Mario Kranjac over a vacation dispute. The police chief had accumulated close to 350 vacation days, according to Northjersey.com. The mayor told Cioffi to use the vacation days prior to retirement, as the city would have to pay him over $300,000 if he did not.

"In our view, vacation days are not a retirement benefit but are to be used while working," Kranjac said. "The citizens of Englewood Cliffs and the state of New Jersey in general have suffered the terrible financial consequences of these outrageous salaries and benefits."

Cioffi, on the other hand, said Kranjac had overstepped his authority. "Rarely has a public official brazenly and blatantly so misused his office and flouted the law," his suit read.

The police chief has been suspended twice in the last three years.

Earlier this year, he was suspended for two days for failing to investigate a complaint brought by a former councilwoman and for "improper dissemination" of a memorandum, Northjersey.com reported.

In April 2016, the city council voted to suspend Cioffi following allegations that he had conducted a ticket-fixing scheme and claims of "retaliatory conduct" against a whistleblower, among other concerns, NJ.com reported. The prosecutor did not levy charges against Cioffi.

The recording of the police chief surfaced shortly after WNYC published a clip in which Bergen County Sheriff Michael Saudino made racist remarks about African-Americans and Sikhs. Saudino resigned a day after his remarks went public, according to The New York Times.