Five North Bergen residents have become new members of the North Bergen Police Department. Mayor Nicholas Sacco and Chief of Police Peter Fasilis presided over the June 22 oath of office ceremony in township chambers, along with Commissioners Allen Pascual, Hugo Cabrera, and Julio Marenco.
Four of the new officers have prior law enforcement experience.
Martin Antelo, a 22-year resident of North Bergen, graduated from the Passaic County Police Academy in 2018 and currently serves as a SLEO II with the Community Policing Unit.
Christian Arcos, a lifelong North Bergen resident, will graduate from Rutgers University in the spring of 2022 with dual majors in criminal justice and sociology with a minor in computer science. He has been serving in the NJ National Guard with the rank of sergeant since 2014. He is the first in his family to serve in law enforcement and will enter the Hudson County Police Academy in July.
Mirroring community demographics
Freddy Au-Castillo has lived in North Bergen for three years and eight months. In 2007, he opened a trucking company servicing the NY-NJ ports. He graduated from the Passaic County Police Academy in 2020 and currently serves as a SLEO II for the NBPD in the Patrol Division Squad 3.
Christopher Bowen, a lifelong North Bergen resident, graduated from the Passaic County Police Academy in March 2020, after which he worked as a sheriff’s officer for the Hudson County Sheriff’s Department. His older brother Brendan Bowen is a police officer with the NBPD.
Catherine Cabrera, a lifelong North Bergen resident, currently works as a SLEO II with the NBPD and graduated from the Passaic County Police Academy. Her brother-in-law Santiago Hernandez is the sergeant of the Internal Affairs Unit.
North Bergen’s resident-only hiring policy has resulted in a police department that closely matches community demographics. These new hires bring the total to 125 fulltime officers, the most in the township’s history.
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