One of his victims is getting a second shot at naming the cops in a civil lawsuit. But does qualified immunity apply?
Yearbook photos of Robert Goodlin when he worked at Secaucus High School.Detective Ronald Gamba followed a red car into a cemetery and watched as the driver, an older man, swapped places with a teenage boy behind the wheel.
Yet the surveillance never escalated to a full-blown investigation. No case number was ever assigned, and Gamba never asked anybody any questions. Gamba, who said he never personally witnessed any sexual abuse, stopped the surveillance in the fall of 1996, once the school year restarted.in the 1990s and early 2000s. He was released from prison in December after serving two and a half years at Avenel, a treatment facility for sex offenders.
Now 32, the man — identified in the lawsuit under the pseudonym John Doe — is one of more than a dozen former students who say they are victims of Goodlin’s, and one of three who has named the Elizabeth Police Department as a defendant. While his identity is not listed in the court document, NJ Advance Media is withholding his name to protect his identity because he’s a victim of sexual abuse.
The degree to which Gamba — who retired in 1999 — did a proper investigation into Goodlin back is central to the case against the police department, said Brian Schiller, a Mountainside-based attorney who represents John and the other dozen plaintiffs. Gamba said he never approached school officials because he didn’t want to tarnish the teacher’s reputation if there was an innocent explanation for everything he saw. And, he said during the deposition, school officials would likely tell the teacher, which would make him aware of the surveillance.
The police department has argued Gamba did investigate: he fielded the tip about Goodlin’s behavior, conducted surveillance and decided not to pursue the matter any further. That judgment call, it says, is protected under qualified immunity. The Elizabeth Police Department has argued that when it chooses to end an investigation or whether it chooses to make an arrest is purely discretionary.
Walsh, during the hearing, ultimately agreed with Schiller, despite Elizabeth attorneys arguing he hadn’t met the bar for reconsideration. He dropped out of high school a few years after being abused, began drinking at an early age, and developed anger issues.
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