The former police chief of Bordentown Township said blacks are “like ISIS, they have no value,” mused about joining a firing squad to mow them down, and used police dogs to intimidate black spectators at high school basketball games, federal authorities said Wednesday in announcing assault and hate-crime charges against him.

Frank M. Nucera Jr. has “a significant history of making racist comments concerning African Americans,” according to a criminal complaint filed by the FBI in federal court in Camden.

The charges stem from an incident a year ago in which Nucera allegedly attacked a handcuffed black suspect who was already in police control in the Burlington County town. He made a series of anti-black remarks following the assault, authorities said, remarks that were secretly recorded by an officer in his department who was alarmed by the chief’s hostility toward the community.

In the Sept. 1, 2016, incident, an 18-year-old African American man, accused of not paying his motel bill, was pepper-sprayed and placed in handcuffs, and was being led to the top of a motel stairwell by two Bordentown Township officers when Nucera arrived. The chief approached the suspect from behind and “slammed his head into a door jamb,” according to an affidavit filed by the FBI.

Acting U.S. Attorney William E. Fitzpatrick and FBI Special Agent in Charge Timothy Gallagher announced the bias and civil rights charges at a news conference at federal court in Camden, where Nucera later appeared before a magistrate judge and was ordered held on $500,000 bail.

An officer who witnessed the 2016 incident said the suspect was “shouting at the officers” while at the top of the stairwell and being led to a police cruiser, but was “not kicking or struggling,” the affidavit said. When the man’s head hit the metal door jamb, it made “a loud thud,” the officer reported. A second officer, who was standing next to the suspect, described the blow as “significant” and said he also pushed his shoulder into the door jamb while forcing him and the suspect through the doorway.

Following a 2015 incident involving another African American suspect, whom Nucera suspected of slashing the tires of a police vehicle, the chief allegedly confided in an officer that “these n—s are like ISIS, they have no value. They should line them all up and mow ’em down. I’d like to be on the firing squad, I could do it.”

His alleged animosity toward blacks was also expressed in other ways, authorities said.

“Nucera — also ordered the racially discriminatory use of police dogs to intimidate African Americans,” according to the complaint. “For example, when the BTPD provided security for high school basketball games, defendant Nucera instructed police officers to bring canines to certain games and to position the canine vehicles at the entrance to the gymnasium in order to intimidate African American patrons.”

Some of Nucera’s alleged statements were secretly recorded by an officer in the department, the FBI affidavit said.