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FIRED WORKER CHARGED WITH ATTACKING BOSS

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By MICHAEL O. ALLEN | Saturday, November 2, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | Two Star B | NEWS | Page A02

A 31-year-old man who police said attacked his supervisor when she fired him for showing up drunk for work at the Dwight-Englewood School was being held in the Bergen County Jail on Friday.

Raymond Todd Walker of Morris Avenue, Englewood, was charged with aggravated assault, criminal mischief, and disorderly conduct, said Englewood police Capt. C. Kenneth Tinsley. Bail was set at $9,000.

The supervisor, whom police declined to identify, noticed that Walker was drunk when he arrived at work shortly before 8 a.m. Friday, authorities said. She told him his employment at the school was terminated. Tinsley said the supervisor told police Walker became irate, showering her with obscenities.

She said Walker then grabbed her by the arms, choked her, threw her over a desk, and banged her head over a partition. She was treated at Englewood Hospital for minor injuries and was released.

Police arrested Walker near the school on Palisade Avenue a few minutes after the incident. School officials could not be reached for comment.

ID: 17359856 | Copyright © 1991, The Record (New Jersey)

November 2, 1991
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FOUR SUSPECTS IN DRUG RING ARRESTED SOLD AGENTS COCAINE NEAR SCHOOL

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, November 1, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | 6 Star | NEWS | Page B04

Four alleged drug dealers were being held in the Bergen County Jail Thursday on $150,000 bail each, and county law enforcement officials say the arrests indicate they are beginning to crack key drug rings.

Facing charges of drug possession and distribution are Ernesto Villar, 34, and Eleanora Barclift, 28, both of Elizabeth, and Ivette Quinones, 34, and Luis Aiacena, 32, both of Newark, said Bergen County First Assistant Prosecutor Paul B. Brickfield.

Undercover agents bought cocaine from the suspects on Sept. 13, then arranged Wednesday’s “buy-and-bust” in Elmwood Park, he said.

About 3:10 p.m. Wednesday, Elmwood Park and state police, plus the Bergen County Narcotic Task Force, arrested the four after they sold 10 ounces of cocaine to an officer on Route 46 west, near the Gantner Avenue School, Brickfield said.

Villar drove a truck into a police car while trying to escape, Brickfield said. He said Investigator James Giblin, whose foot was broken, required surgery Thursday. Two other officers were treated for minor injuries.

Barclift was charged with two counts of selling cocaine to an undercover agent 10 ounces Wednesday and a quarter-ounce on Sept. 13. Villar faces similar charges, plus three counts of aggravated assault against a police officer.

Aiacena and Quinones, who face similar drug charges, were each also charged with one count of receiving stolen property the car they drove to the site, police said.

“Ten ounces is a significant amount of cocaine,” Brickfield said. He said the task force is targeting the larger dealers.

ID: 17359732 | Copyright © 1991, The Record (New Jersey)

November 1, 1991
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AIDS ACTIVISTS IN SIT-IN AT FIRM WANT NEW DRUG MADE AVAILABLE

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, October 30, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page A03

A small group of activists, charging that a Japanese pharmaceutical company is slow to develop an experimental drug for treatment of a cancer associated with AIDS, staged a sit-in at the firm’s U.S. headquarters in Fort Lee on Tuesday.

Bob LaChance of Treatment Action Guerrillas said Daiichi Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. determined in laboratory tests on animals about two years ago that a compound developed from a bacteria could halt the growth of blood vessels, and could be effective in treating Kaposi’s sarcoma and some forms of breast cancer. Kaposi’s sarcoma, a cancer that strikes one in 10 AIDS patients, is a proliferation of blood vessels.

Several companies, including Daiichi, are developing experimental drugs to halt the development of these blood vessels. Daiichi’s high molecular weight sugar compound, known to AIDS researchers and activists as SP-PG, is the first known experimental drug that could halt the formation of the purple tumors of Kaposi’s sarcoma in animals.

“They’ve been dragging their feet developing the drug because they are putting corporate profits over people’s lives,” LaChance said. “They want to make sure there’s a market for this drug before they develop it. They are not concerned about people affected by Kaposi’s sarcoma who are dying by the thousands.”

Thomas Boersig, special consultant to the board of Daiichi, told the activists Tuesday it would be premature to bring the drug to the market.

“Some very basic studies have been done in the laboratory on this compound of ours,” Boersig said. “This is a drug that is still in research. When we talk about development, we are talking about studying the product in man, and we have not done that study yet.”

The discussion was tense but peaceful. But protester Bob Rafsky, a 46-year-old Brooklyn man who said he has been HIV-positive for four years, became angry.

“See this dark mark on my forehead? That’s Kaposi’s sarcoma. It’s going to spread. It’s going to kill me. . . . You are my murderer, in your shirt and tie,” he said.

Boersig said it is not lost on him that people continue to die during the search for an effective drug for Kaposi’s sarcoma. Daiichi, he said, is in a race with other companies to develop an effective drug.

LaChance said he lost his lover of 20 years to Kaposi’s sarcoma five months ago.

The 16 activists, 10 of whom sat in a circle, their wrists inserted in plastic tubes and tied with nylon twine, took over the reception area of the company’s ninth-floor offices at 400 Kelby St.

Caption: PHOTO – JOHN DECKER / THE RECORD – Demonstrators in the offices of Daiichi Pharmaceutical talking with a company consultant, Thomas Boersig.

ID: 17359489 | Copyright © 1991, The Record (New Jersey)

October 30, 1991
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FOR BLACK YOUTHS, AN UNEASY START

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by Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, October 27, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page A03

Toward the end of his workshop Saturday, the Rev. Clarence L. James Sr. asked boys in the front pew at Mount Olive Baptist Church in Hackensack what it takes to be a man on the street.

Sell drugs, someone said. Kill somebody, another said. Beat your woman, replied another boy. And on and on: Fight to get respect, have many women, rape someone, gamble, have a gun, pimp.

The street is one of the primary institutions where black males are initiated into manhood, said James, a Baptist minister and evangelist from Atlanta who has been conducting a weeklong revival at Mount Olive Baptist Church that addresses the issues facing the black family. The other institutions he named were prison, military service, and college.

He scrunched his face in mock disgust and winced with each reply.

“That is not the kind of man we need,” James said. “We need husbands for our daughters, fathers for our children, a provider.”

The audience consisted of 100 males, including 50 boys from Hackensack, Englewood, Teaneck, Westwood, Rutherford, and Paterson. James discussed the role of black men during slavery, black men and education, black men and the military, and black men in the family.

The Rev. Gregory J. Jackson, pastor of Mount Olive Baptist Church, said the workshop was an important part of the church’s yearlong celebration of the black family.

“The idea is that we are losing too many of our boys and men to jail, drugs, alcoholism, crime, et cetera,” he said. “We need to develop ways for saving our boys . . . find ways that we can help lost boys make a transition from adolescence to manhood.

“Many of these boys have fathers who are dead or in jail. They are our kids. We’ve got to help the kids grow up as men. You can’t just leave them out there for the world to raise. ”

James said part of their rites of passage into manhood must include educating them about their African heritage and instilling pride in that heritage.

The street, prisons, the service, and colleges have failed the black man because they have failed the black man and his family, James said. He cited the church as an institution where God-fearing Christians can help turn black boys into moral, upstanding men.

Samuel E. Adams, 35, of Englewood said the workshop is a godsend to the black community and that it should be done weekly.

“We first must be taught who we are to love ourselves,” he said. “With this knowledge we are gaining, we must take care of our own. We will never gain respect as a people until we start owning and controlling our community and our resources. ”

Caption: PHOTO – ROBERT S. TOWNSEND / THE RECORD – Youths and their elders joining in prayer at Hackensack’s Mount Olive Baptist Church.

ID: 17359261 | Copyright © 1991, The Record (New Jersey)

October 27, 1991
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POLICE HELD AT BAY IN BOMB THREAT

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, October 27, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page A03

A man, at first thought to have explosives, held Hawthorne and Passaic County sheriff’s officers at bay for several hours Saturday and caused the evacuation of his neighborhood before surrendering without incident, authorities said.

Steven E. Kuiken, 25, of 38 Pasadena Place was being treated for cuts to his hands sustained when he punched out windows in the house, police said.

He was then to be transferred to St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Paterson for psychiatric evaluation, authorities said.

“His mood changed several times during the negotiations,” Hawthorne police Capt. David A. Noble said.

 

Police said he was drinking beer and tequila during the day.

Noble said that Kuiken had been charged on Sept. 3 with burglary and theft in a break-in Aug. 23 at a home on Emmaline Drive. He did not show up for the preliminary court hearing, Noble said. His bail was revoked and a warrant issued for his arrest.

“And what happened today was one of our officers that knows him by sight observed him in the area of his home. He fled on seeing the officer and was observed going into his home. The officer called for assistance,” Noble said.

About 3:30 p.m., two officers from the Sheriff’s Department warrant squad responded and police entered Kuiken’s home, where he was barricaded in a second-floor bedroom.

“He instructed the officers to leave, that he had explosive devices in the house,” Noble said. The officers backed away, “per policy,” he said.

What followed was about five hours of negotiations, conducted by the Sheriff’s Department negotiations team. The bomb squad also was at the scene.
Four houses on Pasadena Place were evacuated and other area roads were blocked off.

“He was finally convinced to give himself up, and did so without any struggle,” about 9:35 p.m., Noble said.

Kuiken had 20-pound propane tanks in the house and two electronic remote control devices, Noble said. He also had a part from an electronic toy taped to a tank, he said.

“It in fact resembled a bomb, and on several occasions we could see it. It certainly caused us to exercise caution,” Noble said. About 7:30 p.m., Kuiken threw an ignited tank onto the lawn, but it burned itself out, Noble said.

Caption: COLOR PHOTO – STEVE HOCKSTEIN / THE RECORD – Police removing items from the house in Hawthorne where Steven E. Kuiken barricaded himself on Saturday.

Notes: Late run

ID: 17359264 | Copyright © 1991, The Record (New Jersey)

October 27, 1991
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HOMEMADE PLANE CRASHES; FRANKLIN LAKES MAN KILLED; CRAFT HIT CABLE OVER U.S. PARK

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, October 25, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | 6 Star | NEWS | Page B03

A 26-year-old Franklin Lakes man was killed Wednesday when a single-engine plane he was flying over a national park hit a television cable, landed upside down in the Delaware River, and broke into pieces, authorities said.

Laurence W.P. Rizzo died instantly from the impact of the experimental, homemade aircraft on the water, Pike County Coroner James J. Martin said.

Rizzo had been a flight instructor for about 15 months at Sussex Airport. He had taken off from the airport at about 2 p.m., airport manager Paul Styger said. The plane crashed about 50 minutes later in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area in Pike County, chief ranger Barry Sullivan said.

Rizzo was pulled from 4 feet of water, Sullivan said. Martin pronounced him dead at 3:12 p.m. He said Rizzo died of a broken neck.

Rizzo was alone when the plane crashed. The tail section separated from the rest of the fuselage.

Styger said Rizzo, who was born and raised in Paterson before moving to Franklin Lakes in 1976, had been teaching flying at the airport while building up time to apply for work as either a corporate or commercial airline pilot. Rizzo was a 1990 graduate of LeTourneau University in Long View, Texas.

Witnesses told Stroudsburg radio station WSBG-WVPO the plane had been flying low and appeared to have engine trouble as it dipped over the river, striking a cable line.

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the cause of the crash, agency spokesman Duncan Pardue said Thursday.

Pardue described the aircraft as a wood and fiberglass plane built from a kit.

This article contains material from The Associated Press.

Keywords: PENNSYLVANIA; AVIATION; ACCIDENT; DEATH; FRANKLIN LAKES; MAN; LAURENCE RIZZO

ID: 17359084 | Copyright © 1991, The Record (New Jersey)

October 25, 1991
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FLORIO SEEKS NEW WIRETAP LAWS CITES ELECTRONIC USE IN CRIME

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Thursday, October 24, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page A03

Against a din of voices protesting his policies, Governor Florio on Wednesday proposed updating state wiretap laws to enable law enforcement officials to intercept communications on electronic devices such as beepers and fax machines.

“It is time we stop fighting crime with one hand tied behind our back,” Florio said in front of city police headquarters as he proposed the amendment, which Assemblymen Byron M. Baer, D-Englewood, and D. Bennett Mazur, D-Fort Lee, said they would introduce in the Assembly next month.

The amendment would target drug dealers and organized drug activities, Florio said, and would allow police to get court orders to intercept communications on beepers, faxes, and cellular telephones, which they are not allowed to do under current law.

“If there is anything we’ve learned about dealing with drug dealers, it’s that they are very sophisticated. They keep up with the times. They are right in there using all the high technology to further their bad business. Today they communicate with beepers, computers, fax machines, whatever,” he said.

Current laws allow law enforcement officials to get court orders to wiretap traditional telephones when they suspect criminal activities are taking place. New Jersey failed to update its laws in this area in 1988, as required in a 1986 law updating federal wiretap laws, the governor said.

Hackensack Police Chief William C. Iurato said any tool that assists police in fighting drugs is appreciated, particularly in the areas delineated in Florio’s proposed legislation.

Lt. Ron Natale, commander of the department’s detective bureau, said the proposed amendment would enable police to remove drugs from the streets as well as conduct other investigations.

Natale mentioned a search in June for Kelly Gonzalez, a 4-year-old Hackensack girl kidnapped from her home because her father was allegedly involved in a dispute over drugs. Kelly was returned to her mother after eight days in captivity.

“He, the victim’s father, had beeper contact with numerous people, and had we had legislation of this nature at that time, it may have led to a more speedy recovery of the victim,” Natale said.

Baer said he would work to get the bill passed quickly.

“Without these tools, even the legendary Elliot Ness and Joe Friday would be left behind by modern criminals who use beepers, radios, computers, fax machines, ultramodern automatic weapons, and cop-killer bullets,” Baer said.

A group of about 30 placard-carrying protesters waited for Florio, heckled him during his 10-minute speech, then booed when he finished. An amused smile playing on his face, he weathered cries of “Florio, go home” and other shouts from passing motorists.

“It’s the political season, after all,” Florio said.

Keywords: FLORIO; NEW JERSEY; LAW; ELECTRONIC; HACKENSACK; POLICE; CRIME

Caption: PHOTO – JOHN DECKER / THE RECORD – Governor Florio on the steps of police headquarters in Hackensack on Wednesday calling for updated state laws on the use of wiretaps.

ID: 17358984 | Copyright © 1991, The Record (New Jersey)

October 24, 1991
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GRIM TALES, HARD DRUGS, TOUGH LESSONS; THESE DEGREES HAVE NO VALUE

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, October 23, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | 6 Star | NEWS | Page B01

They met informally after a talk on drug addiction given by two Bergen County Jail inmates. A handful of Fair Lawn High School students walked onto the stage to meet the prisoners, to ask a question, or make a statement.

One of the students, a 17-year-old senior, felt a special kinship with the pair: He is a recovering cocaine addict.

“It’s true everything they said,” the student said. “You can go to alcohol, and it will bring you right back to drugs.”

The cycle had just been vividly recounted for him and about 270 other Fair Lawn seniors at a forum Tuesday morning in the school auditorium. The program is being offered this month in county schools by the Sheriff’s Department’s “Hit Team.”

The two inmates Michael, 48, and Greg, 28 told of lives disrupted because of addictions, beginning with alcohol and escalating to illegal drugs.
“If you play the game of drugs, you are going to end up one of three ways: addicted, in jail, or dead,” said Michael, who is serving a five-year sentence for possession of cocaine.

Greg said his descent began in the eighth grade, when he tried to use alcohol to mask the pain of mental, physical, and sexual abuse by his father. It soon escalated to nocturnal walks in New York City, looking for crack.

“You have to understand that these little six-packs and cases of beer you drink at victory parties . . . I don’t know, does it really make the music sound all that better? I don’t think so,” Greg said.

“It just doesn’t happen overnight. It started at a young age. It started with drinking. It started as fun. All my friends did it. So I did it, too.”

Michael said he was from Washington and once had a well-paying job and a family. But his addiction put him in the wrong place at the wrong time in a car when police busted the driver with a kilo of cocaine.

Joelynn Lisa, 17, said the two men’s stories were powerful. “It makes you think twice about doing drugs,” she said.

The Hit Team is two inmates, a corrections officer, a deputy sheriff, and an undersheriff or Sheriff Jack Terhune.

Student at Fair Lawn High School fires a pistol in class.

Keywords: FAIR LAWN; SCHOOL; STUDENT; MEETING; BERGEN COUNTY; PRISON; DRUG; ABUSE

Caption: COLOR PHOTO – BOB BRUSH / THE RECORD – Fair Lawn High School seniors listening to Bergen County Jail inmates Greg and Michael tell the stories of their addictions.

ID: 17358824 | Copyright © 1991, The Record (New Jersey)

October 23, 1991
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TAKE PRIDE, PROFESSOR URGES BLACKS

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, October 20, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page A03

After professor Rosalind Jeffries concluded a speech urging blacks to take pride in their heritage, a waiter went over and thanked her for inspiring him and exhorted her to press on with her work.

The 45-minute speech struck the same chord with many of the 350 people at Saturday’s NAACP annual Freedom Fund Awards Luncheon who gave her several standing ovations and flocked to the podium to speak with her.

Jeffries, the wife of controversial college professor Leonard Jeffries Jr., is an art historian and curator, and is a professor at New Jersey State Teachers College. She talked about the contributions of Africans and African-Americans to history, religion, science, and the arts.

But people of all races contributed to civilization, Rosalind Jeffries said. So blacks have to bring forth research that acknowledges contributions of Africans that have long been ignored.

“She didn’t make a speech, she made a statement,” said George J. Powell, president of the Bergen County chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

“She made a statement about life, a statement that when we say we are pro-black it doesn’t mean we are `anti anyone. See, there’s a lot of myth out there about blacks not being bright.”

Speaking with a flourish, and injecting humor and sarcasm, Rosalind Jeffries challenged those myths.

And, without naming names, she touched on a subject that black communities around the country have been embroiled in the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill confrontation before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.

She decried the spectacle of two successful, educated blacks being part of such a lurid display before the nation.

“I hate to see a woman destroy a man in public because she was wounded,” she said. “Even when you are wounded and hurt there’s a time when you must sacrifice. I don’t condone sexual harassment and I am for women’s rights. But I think you must use wisdom in living, along with the knowledge that you acquire.”

Youth Achievement Awards were presented to Wendi Celeste Dunlap, a Hackensack High School sophomore; Richard Howard Jones, a Teaneck High School honors student; Kaileen T. Alston, a senior at Dwight Morrow High School in Englewood; and Natalie Louise Jenkins, a graduate of Demarest’s Academy of Holy Angels and a freshman at Spelman College. Also honored were: Lou Schwartz, Anne Strokes Joyner, Jacqueline Caraway-Flowers, and Curtis and Michelle March, all of Teaneck.

Keywords: SPEECH; BLACK; RIGHT; ART; HISTORY; TEACHER; AFRICA; RELIGION; SCIENCE; TEANECK; EAST RUTHERFORD; ORGANIZATION

ID: 17358599 | Copyright © 1991, The Record (New Jersey)

October 20, 1991
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MAN’S BODY DUE IN ENGLEWOOD Exumation from Potter’s Field set

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, October 16, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | 6 Star | NEWS | Page B03

The body of Edward Gee Jr. is expected to be returned home to Englewood this weekend for proper burial 16 weeks after his family first reported him missing and 10 weeks after they discovered he had died in a New York City hospital.

Gee’s family had the body, which was buried July 9 under the wrong name in Potter’s Field, exhumed for verification, which is expected to be done Thursday, William J. Ewing, the family’s lawyer, said Tuesday.

A wake has been planned for 7 to 9 p.m. Friday at Nesbitt Funeral Home in Englewood. The funeral will be held at the funeral home at 10 a.m. Saturday, with burial to follow at Fair Lawn Cemetery.

Gee, 32, had disappeared after work on June 20. His mother, father, and a sister went to the Englewood Police Department on June 28 to report that they had not seen him and were worried.

Gee was conscious and was talking with paramedics when the New York City Emergency Medical Service picked him up at 172nd Street and Broadway on June 20 and took him to Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, Ewing said.

Although he had several pieces of identification in his wallet when he died of acute cocaine intoxication at the hospital that night, the hospital sent Gee’s family a bill for $278 for emergency room services on July 7 and told them that he had been discharged June 27. He was buried on Hart Island, a city burial ground for unclaimed bodies, three weeks later as an indigent with the name Edward Lee Jr.

The city Medical Examiner’s Office and city police said they were not responsible for the misidentification. Leslie Bernstein, a spokeswoman for Columbia-Presbyterian, said the hospital had completed an investigation into the case but said the results were confidential.

“We have not received any formal explanation from the hospital at all,” Ewing said. The family declined comment Tuesday, referring all questions to Ewing.

Following weeks of investigation by Englewood police and the Bergen County Sheriff’s Department, and after the family received two bills from the hospital, the family identified a photograph of Gee’s body at the Medical Examiner’s Office on Aug. 5.

“The family didn’t waste any time,” Ewing said. “The family immediately signed all necessary documents and paid the necessary fees for the return of their son. We have no explanation for why so much time was necessary to return the body from the city cemetery.”

A private forensic pathologist hired by the family will observe Thursday when the Medical Examiner’s Office is expected to verify that the exhumed body is the same as the one the family identified in the photograph, Ewing said.

“There is no doubt that the family will file a lawsuit immediately for redress in this matter,” Ewing said. “However, the formal investigation has not yet been completed, and the family specifically wants to complete the autopsy and the positive and definitive identification before the suit is commenced.”

The family filed notice of a $6 million claim with the city on Oct. 9, Ewing said.

Keywords: ENGLEWOOD; MAN; DEATH; NEW YORK CITY; CEMETERY; ERROR

ID: 17358271 | Copyright © 1991, The Record (New Jersey)

October 16, 1991
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