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Jan 30
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JAIL STILL DEFICIENT, EXPERT TESTIFIES

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Thursday, January 30, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | 5 Star | NEWS | Page: B01

Conditions that led Bergen County Jail inmates to file a class-action suit against the county and state remain largely unchanged since a sanitary expert last inspected the jail more than a year ago, the expert testified Wednesday in Newark.

Ward Duel, who was hired by the state Department of the Public Advocate after it had filed the suit on behalf of the inmates, said that upon reinspection Wednesday he found some improvements in health and food services. Duel said other jail facilities and programs had deteriorated, however.

The suit, filed in 1988, charges that overcrowding in the jail and its annex exacerbates violations of inmates constitutional rights. Of 984 inmates currently in the jail which has a rated capacity of 423 inmates 379 are state-sentenced prisoners.

Duel, an Illinois consultant who has seen prison conditions in 33 states, inspected the jail and testified extensively in 1990 on what he saw there.

Wednesday morning he reinspected the jail to look for improvements; during a resumed hearing on the suit, he said that he did not find many.

Inmates still contend with filthy walls, mouse droppings, sewage dripping from overhead pipes in the kitchen, unsafe electrical wires, leaky fixtures, and toilets that back up, he testified.

For instance, damage done to the annex during a June 1990 riot has not been repaired, Duel said. In that riot, inmates ripped out urinals and sinks and smashed toilets and windows. Some dormitory and cell areas in the annex have worsened, he added. In one area, he said, he was unable to turn on 18 of 36 lights.

“I think one of the conditions that contributed to the lack of good housekeeping is that the building is so dark,” he said. “You need good lighting in order to have good housecleaning.

“My overall evaluation of the annex has not changed. I was disappointed to see the new pods deteriorating.”

One of the areas Duel said had improved, food services, was the focus of a Jan. 11 protest in which an inmate was bitten by a guard’s dog when corrections officers tried to restore order. Inmates involved in that protest are scheduled to testify in the hearing next week.

Neither Deputy Bergen County Counsel Murshell Johnson nor Deputy Attorney General Catherine M. Brown would comment on Duel’s testimony Wednesday. The hearings are scheduled to continue today and are expected to last at least through February.

Jerrold B. Binney, chief of staff to Bergen County Executive William “Pat” Schuber, said Tuesday that the county has set up a jail advisory committee that monitors the sanitary and safety conditions cited and is developing a master plan to develop long-term solutions to problems in the jail.

Talks to settle the suit out of court broke down late last year. The hearings are being conducted by James R. Zazzali, a special master appointed by U.S. District Judge Harold A. Ackerman in September 1989 to make recommendations based on the hearings.

ID: 17367448 | Copyright © 1992, The Record (New Jersey)

Jan 29
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VICTORY FOR JAIL COULD BE A LOSS; Hearings Resume on Overcrowding

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, January 29, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | 5 Star | NEWS | Page B01

In an ironic twist to a class-action suit seeking to reduce overcrowding at the Bergen County Jail, a high-ranking county official says the county could wind up a loser if it wins the case.

Jerrold B. Binney, chief of staff to county Executive William “Pat” Schuber, said Tuesday that the state might walk away from the jail’s problems, if the recommendation of special master James R. Zazzali goes against the Department of the Public Advocate. It filed the federal suit in behalf of jail inmates in 1988.

The state and county are defendants in the case. Hearings on the suit were scheduled to resume today, after negotiations on an out-of-court settlement reached an impasse late last year.

Of 984 inmates in the jail which has a rated capacity of 423 379 are state prisoners, said a spokeswoman for Bergen County Sheriff Jack Terhune.

Binney, who has been designated by Schuber to speak for the county on the issue, said that the county has maintained all along that the state is to blame for the overcrowding and a host of other problems at the jail.

If the state and county win, he added, the state would have no incentive to decrease the number of state prisoners in the jail, or to increase its per-diem subsidy for state prisoners.

Binney says the county may sue the state to get it to address the county’s concerns.

“We’ve already done that in one instance, on the per-diem issue,” he said. “We’ve joined the Gloucester County suit on the per-diem cost because, right now, it is draining our treasury.

“We get $45 a day from the state,” he went on. “That’s what we’ve been getting for about 12 years, and everybody knows the costs have been going up. We feel that at a minimum at a minimum it’s costing us $65 a day to house those state prisoners, and that’s not even including some capital costs.”

The Bergen County freeholders are to consider the per-diem issue at their next meeting, deciding how much to ask of the court in the Gloucester case.

Deputy Attorney General Patricia Leuzzi, representing the state Corrections Department in the suit, said she had not been notified that Bergen County joined the Gloucester suit.

Leuzzi also said she was reluctant to discuss the issues discussed during settlement talks, but that the state does not dispute that the per-diem rate needs to increase. The state Legislature is responsible for such an increase, she said.

“The budget is limited,” she said. “The governor and the Legislature are making difficult decisions on what can be funded. Things are being cut back. There are complaints from every constituent.”

Deputy Public Advocate Audrey Bomse, who is handling the class-action suit, said the state deliberately overloads the county jails in order to avoid having its prisons declared unconstitutional.

Bomse said that overcrowding exacerbates the violation of inmates constitutional rights, and that an expert for the public advocate would testify today that, with the exception of health care, “almost next to nothing has been done to ameliorate” problems at the jail.

Among the problem areas cited were lack of exercise, poor lighting, improper sanitation, inadequate protection of inmates from other inmates, and a rising level of violence between inmates and corrections officers.

Corrections Department spokesman James Stabile said that overcrowding results from state prisons taking in more inmates than they let out. In 1991, for instance, 11,559 inmates came into state prisons and 8,216 were paroled, leaving a monthly average surplus of 279 inmates.

New Jersey is one of only five states in the nation not under a court order to drastically reduce its prison population, said Betsy Bernat, a spokeswoman for the National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. The project seeks to reduce prison populations.

Bernat said the reasons vary among the five states. Vermont, Montana, and North Dakota have no prison overcrowding largely because they are sparsely populated states, and Minnesota doesn’t because it imprisons only the most dangerous criminals.

She agreed with Bomse that New Jersey, which operates at about 135 percent of its prison capacity, was able to stave off a court order by “backing up its prisoners into the county jail system.”

ID: 17367308 | Copyright © 1992, The Record (New Jersey)

Jan 26
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HEARING-IMPAIRED CAN CONTACT POLICE

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, January 26, 1992

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

Just in time to comply with a federal law that takes effect today, borough police on Friday installed a device that will enable people with speech and hearing impairments to contact police headquarters.

“This is long overdue,” Detective Michael Burns said Saturday. “It opens a whole new world of communication for people.”

The legislation, called the Americans With Disabilities Act, was signed into law in July 1990. Under one of its provisions, police must be equipped with a Telecommunication Device for the Deaf, or TDD.

New Milford is one of more than a dozen Bergen County police departments that either recently purchased such a device or, like Allendale, have been using one for a number of years. But spokesmen for more than 40 other Bergen departments contacted Saturday said they still lack the equipment.

Most models of the machine are about the size of a small console telephone, with a typewriter keyboard and a display screen.

To contact police, users need a matching device at home. They type their message and it is carried through phone lines to police headquarters, where it is displayed on a screen and copied on a printer. The home units also can receive messages.

Lee Brody, a pioneer in the development of the TDD and now a vendor of the devices, said about 6,000 families across the state have one in their homes, most of them in Bergen and Middlesex counties. However, many people with impairments do not have the devices, he said.

Burns said he first became aware of the law’s requirement in October, when a company wrote him a letter trying to sell the department a TDD. After researching the law with the federal Justice Department, he solicited prices and found they ranged from $300 to $4,000. Burns said he opted for one that cost $625.

“It’s a state-of-the-art unit which allows us to handle any type of call,” he said.

The law mandating the equipment is a far-reaching measure requiring that any place serving the public be made accessible to the disabled.

ID: 17366997 | Copyright © 1992, The Record (New Jersey)

Jan 25
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INMATE CLAIMS INJURY BY GUARD DOG; Attack in food protest charged

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Saturday, January 25, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | One Star | NEWS | Page A04

A Bergen County Jail prisoner claims he was injured when he was subdued by a police dog during an inmate protest over food.

Another inmate said the prisoner was bitten by the officer’s dog, but Sheriff Jack Terhune would say only that he assumed the inmate was bitten, because he needed medical attention.

Inmate Gary Jones, 32, said in a call to The Record that he saw a guard dog bite Gregory Cannell on Jan. 11 during a melee that ensued when several inmates dumped their food trays in protest over the portions they receive at mealtime.

Terhune said Thursday that Cannell received medical attention after he was taken into custody with the assistance of the guard dog. Cannell, 26, of Union City, was then returned to an isolation cell because he and Howard Tucker, 19, of Newark, face a charge of assault on a law enforcement officer in the disturbance, Terhune said.

Cannell was one of several inmates who tried to push past a corrections officer into a hallway after about 10 inmates had dumped their trays, Terhune said. Several officers responded to the correction officer’s call for assistance, he added, declining to say whether anyone else was hurt.

Jones was one of five inmates who called The Record around midday on Jan. 11, before the disturbance later that afternoon, to say they were on a hunger strike in protest of their meal portions, and of general conditions. Jones reported the incident to The Record several days later.

The state Department of the Public Advocate, which is representing the jail inmates in a suit to reduce overcrowding at the jail, is looking into the incident and may have the inmates involved testify at a hearing next week.

Assistant Deputy Public Advocate Audrey Bomse said she was aware of the incident but had not received a report from either side. The charges of assault filed against the two inmates were not surprising, Bomse said.

“I’m not going to prejudge this. Sometimes that is the case, but sometimes it is also used as justification for the use of excessive force upon inmates,” Bomse said.

Keywords: BERGEN COUNTY; PRISON; ANIMAL; ASSAULT

Notes: Cut in late editions.

ID: 17366953 | Copyright © 1992, The Record (New Jersey)

Jan 24
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ESCAPED KILLER CHARGED IN HOLDUPS; Pair of Businesses were Robbed

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Byline: By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, January 24, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | 5 Star | NEWS | Page B01

A convicted killer who escaped from a Connecticut prison and was recaptured in Paramus over the weekend was charged Thursday with two armed robberies in Rutherford and Montvale, authorities said.

Police linked Frank Vandever to the Jan. 7 robberies of a Rutherford jewelry store and a Montvale 7 Eleven after Vandever was captured at Garden State Plaza on Saturday, Bergen County Prosecutor John J. Fahy said.

Ronald Rutan, who also escaped from the Connecticut prison and was recaptured last week, was also charged Thursday in the holdups, Fahy said.

Vandever and Rutan are also suspects in the robbery of a 7 Eleven in Waldwick on Jan. 9, the prosecutor said.

Connecticut authorities on Thursday charged Vandever, 37, and Rutan, 34, with breaking out of the Somers Correctional Center on New Year’s Eve, and with kidnapping a couple and stealing their truck at knifepoint the day after the escape.

The two inmates broke out of prison by cutting through the bars of a window near the kitchen and then through two perimeter fences, authorities said. A fence alarm failed to sound.

Vandever, a former stockbroker serving a 40-year term for murdering a client, and Rutan, a convicted burglar, then led authorities in Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey on a manhunt. Rutan was captured in Spring Valley, N.Y., on Jan. 15.

Rutherford Police Chief Edward P. Caughey said that at about 5 p.m. on Jan. 6 Rutan went alone into Crosby Jewelers at 50 Park Ave. and asked a clerk if he could look at diamonds because he was shopping for an engagement ring.

Rutan returned with Vandever about the same time the next day. Vandever held a knife on the store clerk and Rutan brandished a gun that was later determined to be a toy, Caughey said.

Despite a warning from Rutan when he announced the robbery, however, the store manager pressed a silent alarm.

“When he pulled the alarm, they both turned around and fled,” Caughey said.

Neither victim was injured, and nothing was taken from the store.

About 11:46 p.m. the same night, Rutan held a 10-inch knife to the abdomen of a 7 Eleven clerk in Montvale, said borough Police Chief Joseph Marigliani. After Rutan left with about $300, Vandever, who allegedly was in the store pretending to be a customer, paid for a newspaper and also left.

The clerk then called police.

Fahy said he intended to prosecute the case after the two men are dealt with by Connecticut authorities.

ID: 17366857 | Copyright © 1992, The Record (New Jersey)

Jan 23
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NEW RESTAURANT GUTTED BY EARLY MORNING BLAZE

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Thursday, January 23, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | 1 Star | NEWS | Page B01

Celestino’s, the Edgewater restaurant that opened 10 months ago at the site of the old Barge Inn, was destroyed by a pre-dawn fire Wednesday, authorities said.

A married couple who woke up to smoke and flames were routed from their second-floor apartment, but no one was injured, said Lt. Louis Gotthold of the Edgewater Fire Department.

The first firefighters who arrived at the scene, shortly after the first alarm sounded at about 1:20 a.m., saw flames shooting out of the windows in the three-story, wood-frame structure at 1020 River Road, Gotthold said. Firefighters worked hard to keep it from spreading to surrounding buildings, he said.

“It burned out of control for two hours, at least,” he said.

Gotthold said the Bergen County arson squad is investigating the blaze to determine its cause.

The fire was reported by a security guard from a high-rise across the street from the Italian restaurant, Gotthold said. About 60 firefighters from Edgewater, Fairview, Cliffside Park, and Fort Lee fought the blaze, he added.

Jack Warren, a former Edgewater Planning Board chairman and a manager of the Barge Inn for about six months, said the building was so old that it probably would not have taken much to ignite it.

In numerous incarnations, the inn had a reputation as a rough-and-tumble saloon that often caused headaches for borough officials. It was the last of the once-numerous saloons on the town’s 2 1/2-mile waterfront.

Celestino’s, as conceived by Celestino and Mario Genciarelli of Paterson, aimed to be a high-class restaurant. Warren said the restaurant appeared to live up to the hopes its owners and borough officials had for it.

“I haven’t had a whole lot of contact with the establishment since the bar closed, other than to eat there occasionally,” Warren said. “They changed the decor somewhat. They seemed to be doing fairly well.

“The food was good and the atmosphere was really nice. The management seemed to be doing a good job, and it was a pleasant place. ”

The Genciarellis could not be reached for comment.

Developer Lennard Schwartz, who owned the building, envisioned an artists colony in the space above the restaurant, and 10 studios were created. A rear second-floor apartment was occupied by the only known residential tenants of the building. The tenants were staying with friends Wednesday, officials said.

The damage was so severe that the two top floors were being torn down Wednesday, Gotthold said.

Caption: PHOTO – AL PAGLIONE / THE RECORD – A crew removing debris after the Wednesday fire that destroyed Celestino’s on River Road in Edgewater. No one was hurt in the blaze.

ID: 17366792 | Copyright © 1992, The Record (New Jersey)

Jan 20
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VICTIM IDS ROBBERY SUSPECTS

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Monday, January 20, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page C18

A 31-year-old Cliffside Park woman who was held up at gunpoint has identified two Newark men in a police photo lineup as the robbers, police said.

Township police charged Kenneth Snead, 24, with armed robbery and unlawful possession of a weapon on Friday, and are looking for Melvin Crooks, 26, on the same charges, said Lt. Timothy Kelly, township police spokesman.

An employee of the McDonald’s restaurant at 2126 Tonnelle Ave., which was robbed last Monday night, also identified Snead as the gunman who, with another man, came to the drive-up window and demanded money, Kelly said.

The Cliffside Park woman was walking on Eighth Street on Wednesday when she was chased by the robbers, struck on the back of the head, and knocked to the ground before they drove away with her pocketbook.

The woman wrote down the license plate number of the assailants car. Snead and Crooks were later arrested by Newark police. The car, which had been stolen earlier Wednesday, was recovered with the woman’s purse and a cash till from the Roy Rogers restaurant at 1440 Tonnelle Ave. The restaurant was held up about 15 minutes after the woman was attacked, police said.

Newark police had Snead, who they were holding on an outstanding warrant, in custody when North Bergen police came calling later Thursday, Kelly said. Newark police had released Crooks on bail.

ID: 17366460 | Copyright © 1992, The Record (New Jersey)

Jan 19
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OFFICER DIES FROM HEAD INJURY; DAVID C. MORRIS WAS 26 YEARS OLD

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, January 19, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page A06

A Park Ridge police officer who was critically injured when he fell in the parking lot of his apartment building and was later placed on life support died Saturday, a Pascack Valley Hospital spokeswoman said.

Patrolman David C. Morris was 26 years old.

Park Ridge Police Chief Robert Minugh called it a “terrible tragedy.”

Morris, who had been out with friends, arrived at his Hawthorne Avenue apartment about 1 a.m., the chief said. Two friends had lost sight of him for a few minutes, and when they next saw him he was lying on the ground with a head injury.

He was taken by ambulance to Pascack Valley Hospital in Westwood and placed on life support after he was diagnosed as having suffered brain damage from a blood clot, the chief said. He was removed from life support at 5:50 a.m. Saturday after his family was consulted.

“He was an excellent officer, a very fine young man,” Minugh said.

At the Teaneck Police Department, where Morris began his career in January 1987, news that he had been injured and was not expected to live hit hard Friday. Although he resigned from the department in September 1988 to take the Park Ridge job, his mother lives in Teaneck and he had many friends on the force.

“Obviously, it was a shock to hear of the accident,” Teaneck Capt. Gary S. Fiedler said. “I saw him just the other day; he stopped by here Wednesday.”

Chief Donald Giannone said Morris was “a personable guy who performed his functions in a professional manner.” Although his tenure was short, he said, he left in good standing.

Obituary. A-20

ID: 17366369 | Copyright © 1992, The Record (New Jersey)

Jan 19
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FUGITIVE CAUGHT IN PARAMUS; Killer Is Found at Shopping Mall

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By David Gibson and Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writers | Sunday, January 19, 1992

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

The wide-ranging manhunt for a killer who fled a Connecticut prison on New Year’s Eve ended late Saturday afternoon in the parking lot of Garden State Plaza, where Paramus police arrested him in the car he allegedly had stolen.

Frank Vandever, a 37-year-old former stockbroker with a penchant for dressing as a woman, was arrested about 5:15 p.m. and was in men’s clothes, said New York State Police Lt. Arthur Hawker, who coordinated several agencies in the weeks-long search.

“Paramus police saw the car in the parking lot,” Hawker said. “They had it under surveillance when Vandever came out, and as he approached the car, he was taken into custody without incident.”

Vandever was presumed to be armed and dangerous, but police found only a small pocket knife on him; he did not resist arrest.

“He appeared very surprised,” said Paramus plainclothes Detective Joseph Ackerman, who collared Vandever with Detective Jerry May. The detectives said they neared the car with guns drawn as Vanderver got inside.

“He tried to give us a story about how it is his car and he doesn’t know why we are stopping him,” Ackerman said. “He wasn’t convincing at all,” he added.

An eyewitness who claimed to have seen Vandever earlier in the day in a Bergenfield 7-Eleven said he looked “a little scroungy and was wearing a red flannel lumberjack coat, a scruffy beard, and his hair looked uncombed.”

But police said they weren’t sure it was Vandever. He was wearing a dark blue jacket when police transferred him to the Union County Jail on Saturday night; they declined to describe what he was wearing when he was arrested.

“7-Eleven was just one of many look-alike sightings,” Hawker said. “We had numerous sightings during the day. Citizens kept calling us saying they’d seen him here and there.”

Federal marshals were examining cash the man in the lumberjack coat used to buy a money order in Bergenfield to see if they could draw a connection to Vandever.

Vandever was serving a 40-year sentence in Connecticut for murdering a client who had caught him embezzling.

Because of his escape, he now faces federal complaints as well as a host of criminal charges in three states.

The arrest was a low-key finale to an occasionally frantic and sometimes antic manhunt that led hundreds of police with helicopters and dogs from Connecticut to New York to New Jersey and back again, tracking down dozens of false leads and at least twice letting Vandever flee from right under their noses.

On Saturday morning, Vandever apparently stole the car he was found with in Paramus when he returned to the Spring Valley, N.Y., motel where he had eluded FBI agents three days earlier.

Police said Vandever stole the 1984 Dodge Omni at 8 a.m. Saturday from an EconoLodge motel on Route 59.

The fugitive had been at the motel with a fellow escapee since a few days after their New Year’s Eve flight from Somers State Prison in Connecticut, about 100 miles away. They were recognized on Thursday afternoon by a motel resident, but fled when confronted by two FBI agents who apparently moved in before sufficient backup units arrived.

Vandever hopped a fence and bolted into nearby woods; his cohort, Ronald Rutan, ran but was arrested. Rutan was serving a 19-year term for burglary.

Police continued combing the area near the motel on Friday, with reporters in tow and often with unexpected results.

A man in a tattered green coat, described as looking like Vandever’s double, was stopped in Spring Valley three times on Friday by the FBI and police before he was finally cleared of suspicion.

“It’s crazy,” the man said. “These people have no idea what they’re doing. They made me miss my bus. ”

The focus shifted to Nyack, N.Y., later Friday, when a man wearing heavy makeup and carrying a fake bomb stole $10,000 from a drive-up bank teller there. Police still are not sure whether the robber was Vandever, or whether Vandever dressed as a woman during his flight.

As news of the manhunt spread on Saturday, the number of reported sightings some legitimate, some wild goose chases increased.

“It’s like a public phone booth in here,” a trooper at the special command center in West Nyack complained at one point. Officers on both sides of the state line followed up dozens of tips phoned in to police from Bergen, Passaic, Hudson, and Rockland counties.

At 10 a.m. Saturday, Vandever was seen in Clarkstown. At 11 a.m., he was in Upper Saddle River. At noon, he was in Closter. At 2 p.m., he was in Bergenfield, getting a $70 American Express money order at a 7-Eleven store. A half-hour later in Wayne, a suspicious hitchhiker answering Vandever’s description was spotted.

“He acted just like anybody else,” said the 7-Eleven cashier, who declined to give her name. “I guess he figured nobody knew him anyway. He was dressed like a regular guy. ”

Local police stopped by about 30 minutes later with photos of Vandever, whom the cashiers recognized, in part from his striking hazel-green eyes. FBI agents immediately followed, hot on the trail again.

At about 4:30 p.m., Paramus Officer Kenneth Ehrenberg, on routine patrol at Garden State Plaza, noticed the blue Omni in the shopping mall’s west parking lot. He called for backup, and waiting for Vandever, who emerged from the stores carrying no packages and got in the car.

“He returned to the car like an average person, got in the car, and at that point he was placed under arrest,” Ehrenberg said.

Vandever was convicted of killing a client, Ronald Hiiri of Stonington, Conn., who discovered that the stockbroker had been skimming his account.

Caption: PHOTO – STEVE HOCKSTEIN / THE RECORD – Fugitive suspect Frank Vandever, center, behind uniformed Officer Kenneth Ehrenberg, leaving Paramus police station Saturday night.

Notes: Late run version

ID: 17366395 | Copyright © 1992, The Record (New Jersey)

Jan 18
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FOILED BURGLARY SUSPECT COULDN’T HOLD UP PANTS

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Saturday, January 18, 1992

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

Police said Michael Bailey’s pants pockets contained 36 nickels, 20 dimes, 12 quarters, lots of pennies, $44 in bills, a black flashlight, a crack pipe, and a razor knife.

He was not wearing a belt.

With two detectives hot on his heels in Hackensack and one in a car trying to cut him off, Bailey was in trouble Thursday night. The weight of what police now say were fruits of his night’s work was too much: His pants dropped around his ankles and tripped him.

“That’s a lot of weight to be carrying in one’s pocket,” said Hackensack Deputy Police Chief John Aletta of Bailey, who is charged with breaking into a Main Street deli and stealing several of those items.

Bailey, 28, of 67 Kansas St., Hackensack, was being held Friday in lieu of $7,500 bail in the Bergen County Jail.

It began to unravel for Bailey when Detective Sgts. Mike Mordaga, Robert Wright, and Louis D’Arminio noticed him carrying two big brown bags as he walked along Main Street about 11:30 Thursday night. The detectives knew warrants were out for Bailey’s arrest on charges of burglary and drug possession, Aletta said.

Bailey took off running when he saw the detectives turn their car around. Wright and D’Arminio chased while Mordaga followed in an unmarked car until Bailey tumbled to the ground four blocks away.

Police found a telephone, a scale used to weigh sandwiches, a small cash register, and a small television in the brown bags Bailey dropped when the detectives chased him. Police say Bailey got the loot by breaking into Mento’s Deli, 602 Main St.

ID: 17366350 | Copyright © 1992, The Record (New Jersey)

Jan 17
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SUSPECTS HELD IN 2 ROBBERIES IN N. BERGEN

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, January 17, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | 5 Star | NEWS | Page B08

Two men being held by Newark police are suspects in two robberies in North Bergen, including one in which a 31-year-old Cliffside Park woman was struck and knocked to the ground, police said.

The woman was walking on Eighth Street, just east of Grand Avenue, about 7:15 p.m. Wednesday when a man stepped out of a car and demanded her pocketbook, said Lt. Timothy Kelly, township police spokesman.

“She started to run, and he struck her on the back of the head with an object,” Kelly said. “She fell, then she gave up the pocketbook.”

The woman wrote down the New York license plate number of the white, two-door 1982 Chevrolet Camaro as it sped away with two men in it. She was treated at Meadowlands Hospital Medical Center for a head wound and released, a hospital spokesman said.

About 15 minutes later, the same car pulled up to the drive-up window at the Roy Rogers restaurant at 1440 Tonnelle Ave., about a quarter-mile from where the woman was robbed, Kelly said.

A restaurant employee told police he was confronted at the window by a man holding a gun and demanding money. The man appeared nervous and said, “Give me everything,” the employee told police. He handed over a tray with an undisclosed amount of money in it, Kelly said, and the men drove off.

About 8:30 p.m., in Newark’s Weequahic Park, police who heard a broadcast from North Bergen seized the car and arrested Melvin Crooks, 26, and Kenneth Snead, 24, both of Newark.

They were charged with being in possession of a stolen car, which had been taken in Newark early Wednesday evening, said Sgt. Alonzo Evans, Newark police spokesman.

The victims of the North Bergen robberies will be shown a photo lineup that includes the suspects, Kelly said.

Police are also investigating the men in connection with Monday’s robbery of the McDonald’s restaurant at 2126 Tonnelle Ave., he added. As in the Roy Rogers holdup, two men drove to the restaurant’s drive-up window and, with one of them brandishing a gun, demanded money. They escaped with an undetermined amount of cash.

ID: 17366272 | Copyright © 1992, The Record (New Jersey)

Jan 17
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POLICE CHIEFS TO GET NEW LEADER

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, January 17, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | 5 Star | NEWS | Page B08

The leadership of the Bergen County Police Chiefs Association changes hands Saturday when Palisades Interstate Parkway Police Chief Vincent R. Arfuso is sworn as the group’s new president.

Arfuso, 59, takes over from Waldwick Police Chief Daniel Lupo. He joined the Palisades Interstate Parkway Police in 1960 and became chief 11 years ago.

Arfuso, a lifelong resident of Fort Lee, said he went into law enforcement to contribute to the public and to his community. He said his goal as president of the chiefs association would be to improve the education of law enforcement officials.

Lupo, 60, said he felt he was productive in his year at the helm.

“I relinquish the gavel to a very competent and worthy man,” he said. “My goal was to develop a stronger relationship between police and the community, and I think we accomplished that. We serve the public, and that is something we must never forget.”

The chiefs association acts as liaison to local police departments in the county and deals with other county agencies, including the Police and Fire Academy of Bergen County. The association also raises funds to help families of law enforcement officials.

East Rutherford Police Chief Gilbert Logatto, who is to be sworn as first vice president on Saturday, is in line to become president next year.

At the ceremony, which takes place at 7 p.m. at The Fiesta in Wood-Ridge, Florio is expected to sign a bill that would provide better survivor benefits to spouses of municipal police and firefighters.

Under the bill, passed recently by the Legislature, spouses of firefighters and officers who die in the line of duty would receive 50 percent of their salary at the time of death, an increase from 35 percent.

ID: 17366273 | Copyright © 1992, The Record (New Jersey)