By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, November 8, 1991
The Record (New Jersey) | 6 Star | NEWS | Page C01
Police and town officials in Bergenfield are concerned about a spate of recent incidents involving groups of teenagers and young adults armed with weapons such as a rifle, knives, baseball bats, and lead pipes.
In the third such incident in recent days, six teenagers from Hackensack who were armed with a baseball bat and lead pipes were arrested early Thursday as they searched for a youth with whom they had fought, police said.
On Monday, police arrested four men and eight juveniles from Englewood who were armed with a .22-caliber rifle, knives, and baseball bats as they drove into Bergenfield to retaliate against borough youths for a fight the previous Monday.
And in the most serious incident, a 20-year-old borough man was hospitalized last Friday after he was beaten and stabbed twice, Police Capt. George Grube said. Six of the eight young people arrested were from Bergenfield.
The incidents appear to be symptoms of a nascent rivalry between Bergenfield youths and some from out of town, similar to the long-standing rivalry among Hackensack, Teaneck, and Englewood youths that often flares into violence, Grube said.
“It’s amazing that we haven’t had any innocent people get hurt,” he said. “But how long can you go on if things continue like this? We’ve been having this problem for about a year and a half. It’s just that it’s escalated now. There’s more weapons. We are finding groups of kids coming from out of town armed.”
Councilman Vernon Cox said: “It’s obvious this is going to have to be something that is not just a Bergenfield solution, but a regional solution. We are going to have to look for cooperation from our adjoining communities that the other kids with the weapons are coming from.”
Anna L. Ramirez, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for a council seat in Tuesday’s election, said that she had not heard of the recent arrests and that a better effort should be made to inform residents of what is happening.
“I don’t think enough of it is being told to residents of Bergenfield for them to want to do anything about it,” she said.
Ramirez said she hopes the new administration coming into office will have a better plan on how to keep youths out of trouble.
Grube said his main concern is for the safety of Bergenfield residents, and he promised that troublemakers coming into Bergenfield would find police waiting for them.
“We have to send a message out that if they are going to come in here with bats and knives and guns that we are going to take steps to put them away,” he said. “We are dealing with individuals that I believe understand only one thing, and that is enforcement. That is what we are going to do.”
ID: 17360518 | Copyright © 1991, The Record (New Jersey)
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