The mayor of Hackensack says that the city has been trying to fire five police officers for nearly five years, but has not been able to.

The city says that these officers illegally broke into an apartment during a drug bust and then tried to cover it up. But three years after the incident, a judge ruled that these officers can return to work.

“We’ve been struggling for several years now to terminate five officers who were involved in an illegal home invasion,” said Mayor John LaBrosse during Tuesday night’s city council meeting.

LaBrosse would not agree to be interviewed because the case is still tied up in court.

Once the judge gave the OK for the officers to return to work, the case was turned over to the state’s civil service commission.

“But unfortunately, we have been met with resistance by the Civil Service Commission,” the mayor said.

The commission ruled that three of the five officers should go back to work. But the mayor vowed that this wouldn’t happen.

The commission falls under the governor, but it describes itself as a five-person independent panel. Its website states that two of the panel spots are vacant. A spokesperson for the commission could not say why or for how long those spots have been empty and would not answer questions about the Hackensack case.

“New Jersey’s with everybody else, they’re behind, I mean, they’re 401 years behind,” says New Jersey Assemblyman Benjie Wimberly.

The George Floyd tragedy has rushed lawmakers to revisit issues surrounding criminal justice reform.

“Now, when you’re voting ‘No’ on some of these issues, it really says who you are as a person,” Wimberly says. “I don’t care about your political affiliation.”

Issues range from decriminalizing marijuana to decreasing funding for police departments.

“You know what? Our educational system in particular, our public school systems, have been defunded over the years,” the assemblyman says.

Sen. Cory Booker is the lead on the Justice in Policing Act, a bill aimed at holding police officers accountable for their actions.

Wimberly says that police unions will fight back, but he says that good police officers should want to have a portal to report bad officers, since most of them do the job the right way.