PANNELLS MAKING A `MEMORIAL JOURNEY’

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, April 10, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | Four Star B | NEWS | Page B03

The family of Phillip C. Pannell will make a “memorial journey” to the youth’s grave in Fair Lawn this morning.
The event, announced Tuesday by the Rev. Herbert Daughtry on the steps of the Municipal Building, is one of several planned today to mark the anniversary of Pannell’s death.
Daughtry was joined by Pannell’s parents, Phillip D. and Thelma Pannell; their 14-year-old daughter, Natasha, and black leaders as he announced the graveside visit. The Pannells will travel to the grave by car with members of community groups, all assembling at 10 a.m. at the Shiloh AME Zion Church in Englewood.
Another observance is planned today at the township high school, which Pannell attended. Principal James DeLaney said students will reflect on the events of the past year between 1:15 and 2 p.m.
Pannell, 16, was shot by Officer Gary S. Spath, who is awaiting trial on a charge of reckless manslaughter. Police say the black youth was reaching for a loaded gun when he was shot by the white officer. Witnesses have said Pannell’s arms were raised. The shooting inflamed racial tensions in Teaneck.
Wednesday night, Daughtry, a Teaneck resident who is national minister of the House of the Lord Pentecostal Church in Brooklyn, is scheduled to preside at a memorial service for Pannell at the Community Baptist Church in Englewood. It will begin at 7.
On Saturday, marchers will meet at noon at the Bryant School, near where the shooting took place, and walk to the Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack, Daughtry said.
Also present at Tuesday’s news conference were the Rev. Al Sharpton; Dr. William B. Jones of the African Council; Robert H. Robinson of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; and the Rev. Stanley Dennison, president of the Black Clergy Council of Englewood-Teaneck and vicinity.
Record Staff Writer David Voreacos contributed to this article.

Keywords: TEANECK; BLACK; YOUTH; SHOOTING; DEATH; POLICE; ANNIVERSARY

DEFECTIVE TAIL LIGHT LEADS TO PAIR OF DRUG ARRESTS

MICHAEL O. ALLEN | Sunday, April 7, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page A07

Two Newburgh, N.Y., men were arrested after a Palisades Parkway Police detective who stopped their car for a defective taillight found six ounces of cocaine on the driver and 17,200 vials in the trunk, police said.
The driver, Dalton G. Harvey, 43, and his passenger, Jose A. Reyes, 23, each were charged with four counts of drug possession. They were being held Saturday in Bergen County Jail, each on $80,000 bail.
Detective Jim Lynam stopped the car about 11 p.m. Friday near exit 1 in Englewood Cliffs as it headed north on the parkway, Officer Guy Cook said. Lynam approached the car and saw a plastic bag wedged between its rear seats, Cook said.

Keywords: DRUG; ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS; MOTOR VEHICLE; VIOLATION

TEACHER CHARGED WITH ASSAULT ON GIRL, 13; OTHER DUMONT STUDENTS MAY BE INVOLVED

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, April 7, 1991

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

A math and science teacher at the Selzer School for the past 21 years was charged Saturday with aggravated sexual assault on a 13-year-old student, officials said.
James J. Walls, 48, was arrested about 2 p.m. Saturday at his home at 88 Pine St., Haworth, said Bergen County Prosecutor John J. Fahy. Walls was to be held in the Bergen County Jail on $25,000 bail, he said.
It could not be determined Saturday what action school officials would take.
Between Dec. 15, 1989, and June 22, 1990, Walls committed “numerous acts of aggravated sexual assault” on the girl by touching her breasts and buttocks during school hours, Fahy said.
Fahy said the girl graduated from the kindergarten-to-eighth-grade school in June 1990, but that she told a school counselor about the assault only a few days ago. The counselor informed authorities, he said. The Dumont Police Department and the Bergen County Sex Crimes and Child Abuse Unit investigated the charge, he said.
Fahy said that when the case goes to a grand jury, Walls would be charged with aggravated sexual assault for each time he allegedly touched the girl.
“As of right now, the investigation is continuing,” Fahy said. “It’s possible other kids were involved. He’s only charged with sexual assault on the one girl. “
If convicted, Walls could face 20 years in prison and fines of up to $100,000, Fahy said.
Dumont Schools Superintendent Thomas Roberts and Selzer School Principal James Kennedy were not at home Saturday and could not be reached. No members of the school board could be reached Saturday.
Lee Brauer, director of public relations for the Dumont school district, said she was not aware of the charges against Walls or of his arrest. She said she did not have the telephone numbers of any school official with her at home.
Fahy said school officials, including the principal, were aware of the investigation, but did not know if they had heard about the arrest.
Dumont Mayor James Moriarty said he was hearing of the charges for the first time.
“This is a shock. I really don’t have a comment at this time,” he said.

Keywords: TEACHER; ASSAULT; YOUTH; SCHOOL; SEX; DUMONT; STUDENT

Notes: Bergen page version

COUNCILMAN TIPS OFF POLICE TO BURGLARY

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Saturday, April 6, 1991

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

When he left home to go on a walk with his 9-year-old daughter Thursday night, little did Councilman Paul Ostrow know that he would witness a burglary, then start a manhunt.
As a result, township police charged Robert “Speedo” Merritt, 34, of 1088 Arlington Ave., Teaneck, with two counts of burglary and theft Friday. He was being held in lieu of $20,000 bail in the Bergen County Jail.
Ostrow, walking out of his home on Grayson Place at 7:17 p.m., heard a sound near a window of a nearby house, followed by the sound of a man falling inside the home.
“Are you OK? ” Ostrow, a member of the Teaneck Volunteer Ambulance Corps, said he asked the person, thinking it was his neighbor. “My first instinct was to see if anyone needed help or was hurt. “
The suspect asked Ostrow who he was before ordering him to get away from the house.
Ostrow and his daughter saw the man emerge from a window, come toward them, then cross the street and run in the opposite direction, toward Prince Street. He called Teaneck police from his home and gave them a description of the suspect and told them the direction he was headed in.
“When you actually see a human being in the act of this form of terror, you can’t understand how people can treat other people’s lives and property in a way that they would not like to be treated themselves,” Ostrow said.
Nothing was taken from the Grayson Place home. But when police saw Merritt walking east on the westbound side of Route 4, he had a pillowcase slung over his shoulder. The pillowcase contained several stereo and VCR items stolen from a Palisade Avenue home about 8 p.m. They chased him to Cranford Street, where a county police dog found him hiding behind shrubbery.
Merritt is also charged with possession of burglary tools, receiving stolen property, and driving with a suspended license, stemming from his arrest by Fort Lee police Feb. 19.

Keywords: TEANECK; GOVERNMENT; OFFICIAL; BURGLARY

BURGLARY SUSPECT TURNS HIMSELF IN

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Thursday, April 4, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | One Star | NEWS | B04

A 27-year-old Union City man, the second suspect in Monday’s burglary of a Bergen Boulevard home, turned himself in to borough police Tuesday and was charged with burglary and theft, police said.
Thomas Cook of 518 12th St. was being held in the Bergen County Jail on Wednesday in lieu of $25,000 bail.
Palisades Park Police Capt. Remo Framarin said the Bergen County Sheriff’s Department’s Bureau of Criminal Investigations and the Bergen County Burglary Squad, using fingerprint information and composites, identified Cook as a suspect in the burglary. Framarin said several law enforcement agencies are investigating the two men and others in connection with other burglaries in the county.
Police, responding Tuesday to a call about a prowler near a home that had been burglarized Monday, arrested Luis Ayala, 35, of Union City, as he hid in a wooded area east of Bergen Boulevard.
Ayala, also known as Raymond, was charged with burglary, possession of burglary tools, and possession of stolen credit cards. Fort Lee Police Chief John Orso said he was preparing charges against Ayala for six burglaries at the Horizon Apartments in Fort Lee during the past three weeks. The credit cards belonged to someone from Fort Lee, Palisades Park police said.
Palisades Park Municipal Court Judge Joseph Dimiglio set Ayala’s bail at $50,000. Ayala was being held in a secured unit at Bergen Pines County Hospital for undisclosed reasons.

Keywords: PALISADES PARK; THEFT

COUNTY GROUP HONORS 11 FOR THEIR HEROISM

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Thursday, March 7, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | Four Star B | NEWS | Page B01

All the talk of heroism embarrassed Michael Moore. The 25-year-old Cliffside Park carpenter had pulled an unconscious 82-year-old man from a smoke-filled car moments before it exploded in flames. That was last year.
Wednesday, the Bergen County 200 Club, a group that serves law enforcement officers, firefighters, ambulance corps workers, and their families, gave Moore a valor award, one of its highest honors.
“I just didn’t expect this,” Moore, the son of a retired firefighter, said of the award. “I saw him and I carried him out.”
At a ceremony in the grand ballroom of the Sheraton Heights Hotel in Hasbrouck Heights, the group also honored Ramsey Patrolman Frank Alcaro with a valor award. Alcaro saved the life of a 64-year-old man trapped in a capsized boat. He also received a merit award for saving the lives of two children and an adult trapped in a burning building.
Two Fort Lee firefighters and seven policemen also received merit awards.
Alcaro, 29, the father of a 1-year-old girl, echoed the predominant feeling among the honorees when he said he reacted instinctively to situations that he was being honored for.
“I feel good about the award, but it is very humbling, because it is not something that you sit around and think about doing,” he said. “I never even gave a second thought about doing it. It was just what I had to do.”
Wallington Police Officer Richard Cavallo also thought he was doing what he had to do on June 12, when he persuaded an armed man who had already shot one person to drop his pistol. He said he was concerned for the safety of about 30 people in the vicinity of the alley where he confronted a man who had shot his wife’s alleged lover.
“He was highly agitated,” said Cavallo, an 11-year police veteran. “He didn’t want to hear anything. I informed him three times to put his weapon down. The third time, he lowered the weapon and leveled it at me.
“It’s hard to explain, but in a situation like that you just blank out everything around you and concentrate on the situation at hand.”
The man then dropped the gun.
“The amount of time that passed between the first time Officer Cavallo ordered the suspect to drop his gun and when he actually dropped it was only a few seconds,” Bergen County 200 Club Vice President Ray Farrington said in presenting the officer with the merit award. “But it was a lifetime for both the officer and the suspect.”
Also honored with merit awards were:
– Hackensack Police Detective Sgt. Michael Mordaga, Sgt. James Mordaga, Detective Sgt. Arthur Mento, and Officer Anthony Iazetti, for arresting an armed robber on Sept. 28 without firing a shot.
– Fort Lee Volunteer Fire Lt. Michael DeGidio and firefighter Patrick Kellett, who is also a policeman, for saving the life of an elderly woman who was trapped in her bedroom during a fire.
– Teaneck Police Lt. Daniel Moran, who was a sergeant on May 20, 1989, when he saved the life of a 15-year-old boy threatening suicide as he sat on the edge of a building with his legs dangling over the street, five stories below.
– Glen Rock Police Officer Daniel Brindley, who rescued a 2-year-old girl from a brook June 19.
Not all the stories had happy endings. The girl rescued in Glen Rock died several hours later, and Michael Nocero, the Cliffside Park man saved by Moore, died of causes related to smoke inhalation 21 days after being rescued.
Alcaro said police officers all over the world do heroic work without thinking of it as such. It was in the job description, he said.
As his wife, Michelle, put it: “I’m very proud of him, and these awards that he’s getting are very nice. But there are day-to-day things that he does that are equally as heroic. He’s there for accident victims, for children to look up to, there to take control in situations when nobody knows what to do.
“Being a policeman is not just a job, it’s a whole attitude about life. He’s a policeman, even when he’s not working.”

Keywords: BERGEN COUNTY; ORGANIZATION; AWARD

Caption: PHOTO – ED HILL / THE RECORD – Ramsey Patrolman Frank Alcaro showing the valor award he received Wednesday for saving four people in two incidents last year.

2 FACE SEX CHARGES IN ATTACK ON BOY, 16

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, March 31, 1991

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

Two Rutherford men were charged Saturday with sexual assault and criminal sexual contact with a 16-year-old boy.
Richard Amato, 32, of 10 Ayre Place was arrested about 9 p.m. Friday at his business, Big Rich’s Music at 114 Park Ave., and was being held on $20,000 bail in the Bergen County Jail, said First Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Paul Brickfield.
John Capodanno, 36, of 346 Union Ave. was arrested about 4 a.m. Saturday at his home, but posted the $20,000 bail and was released, Brickfield said.
Rutherford police detectives and the Bergen County Sex Crimes and Child Abuse Unit are investigating, Brickfield said, declining to discuss the case further.
Brickfield said the investigation of Amato and Capodanno is unrelated to that of another Rutherford man, Charles W. Confer Jr., 30, of 53 Feronia Way, whose case is now before a grand jury.
Confer was charged March 3 with two counts of sexual assault on a minor after two youths reported incidents a day earlier to police.
He was being held on $50,000 bail. Authorities at the jail would not confirm whether he was still there.

Keywords: SEX; ASSAULT; YOUTH; RUTHERFORD; ABUSE

HOTEL FIRE IS TRACED TO SMOKER ON BREAK

MICHAEL O. ALLEN | Sunday, March 31, 1991

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

A Sheraton Heights Hotel employee taking a cigarette break in a fourth-floor linen closet Saturday ignited a fire that caused a limited evacuation and minor damage, officials said.
Although a few people staying in the hotel were evacuated, no one was injured and the hotel operations, including tonight’s Easter dinner scheduled for 600 guests, will not be affected, said Nick Nicolosi, executive vice president of Motor Inn Associates, which owns the hotel.
“The water did not get to the ballroom or the Apollo restaurant, where we’ll be serving the dinner,” Nicolosi said.
Nicolosi said an investigator found a box of matches and a package of cigarettes in the closet. Damage was limited to the closet and water stains to tiles in the second- and third-floor ceilings, he said. The employee’s identity had not been determined.
Hasbrouck Heights police said Little Ferry and Wood-Ridge firefighters assisted the borough fire department in putting out the fire.

Keywords: HOTEL; FIRE; TOBACCO; HASBROUCK HEIGHTS

RAIN FAILS TO STOP PEACE RALLY

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, March 24, 1991

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

Rain forced a peace activists rally into a Broad Street church Saturday, where they issued a call for American troops to be withdrawn from the Middle East. They urged that the money being used to maintain the troops be spent on domestic problems.
After the rally at Military Park in Newark was cut short, the crowd of about 250 went to the Presbyterian Church two blocks away for an interfaith service to memorialize all who died in the war.
Christians, Jews, and Muslims participated in the ecumenical service.
Lawrence Lamm, chairman of the New Jersey Rainbow Coalition, urged the audience to continue fighting for racial and economic justice.
“Many of you, I know, in recent weeks have been somewhat distraught, wondering how a country such as ours, where the people have such a high level of education and literacy, could blindly follow a foreign policy based on death and destruction. But I say, friends, that we must not despair, that we must in fact take our energy and our emotions and throw it into building a movement for peace and justice.”
The Rev. Robert Moore, director of the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament, said he was not in support of the war to begin with and, now that the stated goal of removing Iraq from Kuwait has been achieved, it is time for Americans to come home. He said the tax dollars being spent to keep them there should be brought home, too.
“We should turn it over to the United Nations and the Arab League and other entities like that to try to resolve other problems and conflicts that are left,” he said.
Rep. Donald Payne, D-Newark, scheduled to address the gathering, was said to have a prior commitment and sent an aide instead.
Rick Thigpen, an aide to Payne, said the congressman has remained constant in his opposition to the war. Payne preferred economic sanctions, he said.
Mayor Sharpe James, who was to greet the participants on the steps of City Hall, also did not appear. Michael Immerso, one of the organizers of the rally, was unable to reach the mayor or any of his aides but said James probably assumed the rally was canceled because of the rain.

Keywords: PERSIAN GULF WAR; DEMONSTRATION

Caption: 1 – PHOTO – STEVE AUCHARD / THE RECORD – Bryan Douglas of Franklin Park, left photo, scrubbing U.S. flag to symbolically cleanse it of Iraqi blood. 2 – PHOTO – STEVE AUCHARD / THE RECORD – In top photo, activists listening to Lawrence Lamm, 3 – PHOTO – STEVE AUCHARD / THE RECORD – right photo, state Rainbow Coalition chief.

BOSTON ACCIDENT KILLS N.J. STUDENT; CELTICS PLAYER IS ARRESTED

By Michael O. Allen and Chrisena A. Coleman, Record Staff Writers | Saturday, March 23, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page A01

A 20-year-old Ridgewood woman and a college classmate, on their way to buy refreshments during a study break, were struck and killed in Boston early Friday by a van driven by a Boston Celtics player who had been drinking, police said.
Michelle Dartley of 118 Madison Place, Ridgewood, a Boston University sophomore, and An Trinh, 21, of Placentia, Calif., were pronounced dead on arrival at Beth Israel Hospital shortly after the accident on Commonwealth Avenue at about 1:45 a.m., authorities said.
Celtics reserve guard Charles Smith, 23, was arrested near the entrance to the Massachusetts Turnpike, about a mile from where the women were hit, police said. Smith pleaded not guilty to two counts of vehicular homicide, driving under the influence of alcohol, and leaving the scene of an accident. He was released on $100,000 personal recognizance bail.
Albert E. Dartley said he was told that his daughter and her friend had taken a break from studying and were on their way to buy soft drinks at a convenience store when the accident occurred.
“It’s just not real. It is hard for me to accept,” Dartley said, shaking his head in disbelief. “I went to visit her last weekend. Thank God I didn’t cancel that trip.
“She had truly excellent values, just a very decent person, very fair-minded. “
Teachers and school officials at Ridgewood High School, where Michelle graduated in 1989, said her strength was in writing and she wrote for the school newspaper and a school literary magazine. She was a reporter for Boston University’s newspaper, The Daily Free Press.
“She had a really good sense for literature, a very good critical sense,” said Ridgewood English teacher Larry Coyle.
Police said a breath test showed Smith had a blood-alcohol level of 0.06 percent. A reading of 0.10 means a person is legally drunk in Massachusetts.

Keywords: ACCIDENT; RIDGEWOOD; DEATH; VICTIM; MOTOR VEHICLE; ALCOHOL; ABUSE; BASKETBALL; PROFESSIONAL; MASSACHUSETT

Caption: PHOTO – MICHELLE DARTLEY