TETERBORO, N.J. -- At first glance, the 1-square-mile town of 22 people hardly looks crime ridden.
But a formula used by crime statisticians determined Teterboro's 1989 crime rate to be 2,091 crimes per 1,000 residents, giving the town the dubious honor of having the state's highest crime rate.
The New Jersey Uniform Crime Report released Friday said there were 46 crimes in Teterboro in 1989, which comes to more than two crimes for each of its 22 residents.
The formula puts the Bergen County borough ahead of Atlantic City, Newark, Camden and Wildwood for the title of the state's highest-crime city.
But Lt. Andrew Monocky, a member of the town's eight-man police force, said the formula used by the report fails to take into account large numbers of people who come to the area daily to work in several large industrial sites or to use the Teterboro Airport.
'It's unfair in how it interprets the formula. There's only 22 people living here, but there's 15,000 people that go through here everyday,' Monocky said.'I'm here 16 years (on the police force), and I don't know of any resident here being arrested.'
Teterboro police said the town has had only two homicides in the past 20 years, both solved, and that the most violent crime last year was a single aggravated assault.
A whimsical story in the Star-Ledger newspaper, called Teterboro 'the baddest place in all of Jersey,' and the 'toughest town' in the state.
'I find it funny, honestly,' he said. 'You can't believe how many news agencies have called here today since the article appeared.'
He said that the majority of local police work in Teterboro is handling fender-benders and burglar alarm calls involving the more than 60 industrial plants scattered about the town.
