Asbury Park has agreed to pay $1.185 million to retired police officer Ahmed Lawson, who alleged that he faced retaliation after reporting that a police captain used a racial slur over the department’s radio system. The settlement resolves the lawsuit without an admission of wrongdoing, leaving the central allegations untested in court, according to Patch.
The agreement calls for four equal payments of $296,250 between July and October 2026. Lawson, who retired in July 2024 after at least 25 years with the department, sued the city and its police department in 2022, alleging that Captain John Crescio retaliated after Lawson reported the alleged transmission to internal affairs, according to Atlanta Black Star.
Lawson also alleged that he was denied promotion to sergeant after ranking near the top of the civil-service list. Those claims, like the allegation about the radio transmission, were resolved by settlement rather than a judicial finding. The agreement therefore does not establish that Crescio used the slur, that retaliation occurred or that the department improperly withheld promotions.
Crescio denied using the slur. In a deposition, he said an accidentally activated microphone captured a private conversation about hunting and that his words referred to “big bucks” and “does,” rather than the phrase Lawson and other officers said they heard, according to Patch.
The settlement comes amid earlier internal-affairs scrutiny
The department’s internal review system had already drawn outside attention. In October 2023, the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office installed an on-site monitor at the Asbury Park Police Department after an increase in internal-affairs complaints filed by officers against one another. Officials said the monitor would appear at random intervals for the foreseeable future, NJ.com reported.
That oversight provides context for Lawson’s allegations but does not prove them or show that the monitor produced structural changes. The city’s official Internal Affairs page publicly lists summary reports for 2023, 2024 and 2025, offering a record of the department’s reporting process but not, by itself, a finding that Lawson’s claims were valid, according to the City of Asbury Park.
A separate discrimination case settled in 2025
Asbury Park also settled a separate lawsuit brought by Lt. Kamil Warraich, the department’s highest-ranking officer of color at the time. The case was filed in 2020, amended in 2022 and settled on Aug. 25, 2025, after Warraich alleged mistreatment and problems with the department’s internal-affairs system, according to the Asbury Park Press.
The Warraich litigation and Lawson’s case share allegations involving workplace treatment and internal procedures, but they are separate matters involving different plaintiffs, claims and settlement agreements. Together they document repeated litigation involving the department; they do not, without adjudicated findings or broader data, establish how frequently discrimination or retaliation occurred or whether the department’s practices changed.
For Lawson, the $1.185 million agreement ends the case financially but not factually. The payment schedule is settled; whether the alleged slur was spoken, whether Lawson was retaliated against and whether promotion decisions were discriminatory were not decided by a court.
