By PETE WALTON
A Bradley Beach police officer is suing the borough, saying it has refused to fully pay him while he performs military service.
Christopher Hingston has been employed by the Bradley Beach Police Department since March of 2016. Hingston has served in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve since July of 2006.
“Officer Hingston began his most recent military leave of absence on or about Feb. 5, 2023,” according to the suit filed last week in state Superior Court. “His military service has continued since then. Officer Hingston is expected to return to municipal employment from military leave on or about March 29, 2025.”
According to the suit filed on Hingston’s behalf filed by attorney Christopher P. Lenzo, “until June 2023, defendant always paid Officer Hingston and other police department employees with military service obligations the difference between their military salaries and their police department salaries while they served our country in the armed forces.”
“However, since June 2023, the borough has refused to continue making such payments despite the fact that the applicable borough ordinance, the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination and the federal Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act all legally require that the salary differential be paid,” the suit says.
The filing details a number of interactions which the attorney says show “blatant animus toward those of its members who serve in the military.”
According to the suit, Lt. James Arnold, who is now Bradley Beach chief of police, texted Hingston in July of 2020, saying that then-chief Leonard Guida “isn’t very happy about the short notice on behalf of the Coast Guard and wants them to know it.”
Hingston said police department representatives contacted the Coast Guard on more than one occasion and “unsuccessfully attempted to have Officer Hingston’s military orders rescinded.”
The officer said that Arnold and other members of the department have repeatedly referred to Hingston’s military service as “vacation.”
According to the suit, Guida told Hingston at a meeting in June of last year that he was “not happy with all of these assignments” Hingston received from the Coast Guard. Hingston said that during the meeting, Guida informed the officer that the borough would no longer provide the pay differential.
“The foregoing statements and actions by upper management are precisely the type of behavior that will support a punitive damages award for military discrimination in violation of the [state Law Against Discrimination].”
On Hingston’s behalf, Lenzo is asking the court to order the borough to “immediately pay plaintiff the back salary differential he is owed for his current military leave of absence with interest, continue to pay plaintiff the salary differential required by [the borough ordinance] for the remainder of plaintiff’s current military leave of absence, and immediately make all required employer contributions.”
The suit also asks the court to order payment of an unspecified amount of damages, saying that Hingston “has suffered and continues to suffer economic losses, emotional distress, harm to career, harm to reputation, and other such damages compensable under the [state Law Against Discrimination].”
Hingston is requesting a jury trial. The case has been assigned to state Superior Court Judge Marc C. Lemieux, sitting in Freehold.
