AFTER THE KILLING SPREE, SUICIDE WATCH FOR SUSPECT

By Bill Sanderson and Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writers | Saturday, October 12, 1991

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

Joseph M. Harris, the fired postal worker accused of killing four people early Thursday, was under a suicide watch Friday in a single cell in the Bergen County Jail’s mental health ward, said Bergen County Sheriff Jack Terhune.

Harris, 35, of Paterson was being held on $1 million bail on charges of killing his former supervisor and her boyfriend in their Wayne home, and of later killing two employees at the Ridgewood post office. He surrendered to a SWAT team Thursday morning.

Harris was armed with two machine guns, several hand grenades, a samurai sword, and homemade pipe bombs when he was arrested.

Investigators were not sure Friday where Harris obtained his guns, or whether he had any gun permits. John J. Fahy, the Bergen County prosecutor, said two of Harris three weapons Uzi and MAC-10 semiautomatic rifles were assault weapons banned under a 1990 New Jersey law.

When the case is presented to a grand jury, the weapons offenses could be added to the list of charges against Harris, which include four counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder, two counts of kidnapping, and possession of hand grenades.

Fahy said he may seek the death penalty against Harris. He said he will ask prosecutors and investigators for advice on the matter, and that he would also consider psychiatric evidence from Harris defense lawyers.

A state medical examiner’s autopsy of Carol Ott, Harris former supervisor, shows she was stabbed four to six times in the upper body. The other victims Cornelius Kasten Jr., Johannes M. VanderPaauw, and Donald McNaught were gunshot victims.

Keywords: RIDGEWOOD; WAYNE; MURDER; MAIL; EMPLOYMENT; BERGEN COUNTY; PRISON

Caption: COLOR PHOTO – ED HILL / THE RECORD – Postal officer in Ridgewood Friday. Sign reads: “We thank you for your condolences at this difficult time. Please do not ask the window clerks any questions regarding the events of yesterday. Thank you.”

AUTO-THEFT UNIT REVS INTO ACTION

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, July 12, 1991

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

There’s no shortage of business for Bergen County’s stolen-car detectives.
The Sheriff’s Department auto-theft unit has been in operation four months, but already it has recovered 47 vehicles valued at more than $600,000 and arrested 23 suspects.
“We had high expectations that it would be a success, and it certainly has met all our expectations,” said Capt. Frank Benedetto, head of the department’s detective bureau. “But we realize that we are fighting a never-ending battle in the area of auto thefts.”
The program, begun March 15, has two detectives, Joseph Cacciatore and David Moody, assigned full-time to auto-theft cases. They have received about 70 cases referred by local police departments, informants, and insurance companies, said Bergen County Sheriff Jack Terhune.
The unit, Terhune said, “is solely dedicated to automobile thefts, which the municipal departments are not able to do.”
According to the state Uniform Crime Report, 4,109 automobiles were stolen in Bergen County in 1990, a 12 percent increase over 1989. Before Cacciatore and Moody began working full-time, the Sheriff’s Department had not been involved in auto-theft investigations in Bergen County for several years, Benedetto said.
In their most recent case, Cacciatore and Moody lured a Paterson man into his probation officer’s Passaic office and arrested him for receiving stolen property.
He is a suspect in a car-theft ring that authorities said took vehicle identification numbers and titles from junk cars and put them onto similar stolen cars.
People with information about a stolen car are urged to call their local police department or a state toll-free hotline on stolen cars 1-(800) 447-HEAT (4328).

Keywords: BERGEN COUNTY; POLICE; MOTOR VEHICLE; THEFT

Caption: COLOR PHOTO – LINDA CATAFFO / THE RECORD – Detectives David Moody, left, and Joseph Cacciatore checking automobile identification numbers. They are assigned to the auto-theft unit of the Bergen County Sheriff’s Department, which has recovered 47 vehicles in its first four months.

BERGEN JAIL CROWDING IS LAID TO STATE

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Thursday, July 11, 1991

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

Bergen County Sheriff Jack Terhune is warning the state Corrections Department that an overload of state inmates is making the county jail unmanageable.
“We have an authorized capacity of 423 between the annex and the main jail, and we run 230 to 240 percent above that, consistently,” Terhune said in an interview Wednesday.
“Now, when you take human beings and you put them in smaller space than was designed for them, you are going to have the potential for violence, the potential for problems.”
Terhune, who said he recognized the state’s prison overcrowding problem, wants some state prisoners removed from his jail.
County jails are supposed to house anyone sentenced to a term of 364 days or less, with those sentenced to a year or more going to a state prison. Of the jail’s population of 966, 429 belong in a state prison, Terhune said. The jail population often swells to more than 1,000 on weekends, he added.
Under a state executive order signed in 1981 and renewed every six months since, Bergen County must take 72 state inmates.
“We get $45 a day to keep state inmates here,” Terhune said. “The cost to the taxpayers of Bergen County is $63 to keep them, so we are losing money. People think we make money off this thing. We don’t.”
The sheriff has written two letters to Corrections Commissioner William H. Fauver expressing his concerns. A spokeswoman said Wednesday that the state removed 10 inmates following Terhune’s first letter in May and plans to remove 30 more this week.
Inmates in two Bergen County Jail annex cell sections were disciplined in a “lockdown” during the weekend following a food fight in one cell section and a gang attack on an inmate in the other. Overcrowding contributed to both incidents, Terhune said, adding that most of those involved were state inmates.
Fauver is aware of the overcrowding problem in all county jails, said Patricia Mulcahy, a Corrections Department spokeswoman, but the 15 state prisons with 23,518 inmates are running an average of 130 percent over capacity. About 3,400 state inmates are in county jails, with some of the jails running 300 percent to 400 percent over capacity.
To alleviate some of the problem, the state will take over the vacant 300-bed Hudson County Correctional Facility in Secaucus, with the first 100 beds available Monday, Mulcahy said. She said she did not know whether any beds would go to county jail inmates.
A 1988 lawsuit brought against Bergen County on behalf of jail inmates seeking relief from overcrowding, among other issues, is being negotiated for a possible settlement. None of the parties in the suit would comment on it this week.

Keywords: BERGEN COUNTY; PRISON; POPULATION; NEW JERSEY

COUNTY INMATES PLACED IN LOCKDOWN FOOD FIGHT, ATTACK LED TO MEASURES

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

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

Inmates in two Bergen County Jail Annex cell sections were put in disciplinary “lockdowns” over the weekend following a food fight in one cell and a gang attack on an inmate in the other, a jail official said Tuesday.
The first incident occurred about 5:50 p.m. Friday when the 72 inmates in Cell Pod A demanded fried fish instead of the baked fish they were served, said Bergen County Sheriff Jack Terhune.
In the ensuing verbal complaints about the food, Terhune said, an inmate knocked over a stack of food trays. The other inmates then began throwing their food.
A second lockdown of 72 more inmates started in Cell Pod B about 9:20 p.m. when six inmates ganged up on one, Terhune said.
A lockdown, in which inmates lose all privileges as they are locked up in their cells, occurs when inmates violate the jail’s rules and code of conduct. Terhune said jail administrators then investigate to find out who was responsible for the violation.
Terhune said jail officials on Tuesday released all 144 inmates from lockdown and restored privileges to the inmates.
In a telephone call to The Record on Tuesday, two inmates, speaking on condition that they not be identified, said they were locked up and denied privileges when they refused to identify the inmate who knocked over the trays. They said the protest began because they were served fish that was improperly cooked.
Terhune said most of the inmates involved in Friday’s incidents were state prisoners, and that 425 of 965 inmates currently in the jail are state prisoners. The jail has a rated capacity of 423 inmates.

Keywords: BERGEN COUNTY; PRISON

SCHUBER LEADS REGIONALIZATION TALKS

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, June 2, 1991

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

In the first of what new Bergen County Executive William “Pat” Schuber said he hopes will become regular meetings of municipal leaders, representatives of 45 county communities met with him Saturday to talk about regionalization and consolidation of services.
“The county is not that big anymore,” New Milford Mayor Theresa M. King said. “It’s 70 towns, and we all have the same problems. My concern is that the county put forth programs that do not duplicate themselves, that we don’t add . . . bureaucracy and additional costs.”
Saturday’s meeting, organized by Schuber and Charles O’Dowd, chairman of the Board of Freeholders, among others, examined regionalization in areas such as health, law enforcement, recycling, and a countywide 911 system.
“Regionalization as a word does not mean the end of home rule,” Schuber told those gathered, “but instead represents an approach which will aid communities during these most difficult economic times such as [those] we are facing.”
County government, Schuber said, will take a lead role in helping the towns find ways to share services and concentrate efforts to take advantage of the economies of scale.
One area that is being scrutinized is the potential for regionalizing law enforcement. First Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Paul Brickfield announced that a commission to study how that could be done would be named in July, with meetings and hearings scheduled in August and September.
He said many communities already share dispatching duties, have mutual aid assistance programs, and work together in other ways.
When asked what would happened if a town decided to opt out of a regional arrangement, Brickfield said that would be an impediment only if the proposal was for one central police department for the whole county.
“It is unlikely at this stage that a plan would emerge seeking that all 70 towns join into one force. The trend in the short term is for neighboring towns to at least start to share services, and look at consolidation later,” Brickfield said.
Regionalization is a bitter medicine for some, however, even those like Ridgefield Park Mayor Fred J. Criscuolo, who served on the Inter-local Governmental Relations Committee of the Schuber transition team.
The concept of regionalization is a direct attack on home rule that would cause the deterioration of municipalities by the year 2000, Criscuolo said. But he said municipalities have little choice.
“Since it’s been forced on us, it is the only way to go,” Criscuolo said. “Funding is almost terminated in most areas. With various laws and mandates from the state that require even more money, I think regionalization, or as we call it, intergovernmental relationship, is the only way to go.”
O’Dowd said he realized regionalization might be difficult to achieve politically.
“There are two standards to be met when we talk about cooperation and regionalization: will the service improve and will the cost decrease,” O’Dowd said. “If we can put all the cobwebs out of our brain about home rule and local control and understand that we’ll still have that because it is our decision to make. If we meet those two standards, then we have served our people and served them well.”

Keywords: HACKENSACK; BERGEN COUNTY; EXECUTIVE; MEETING; GOVERNMENT; OFFICIAL

Notes: Bergen page

COPS READY TO BUCKLE DOWN ON ANYONE NOT BUCKLING UP

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, May 24, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | One Star Four Star B Two Star | NEWS | Page B04

Operation Domino, the six-month driver-education program that sponsors said helped reduce automobile accidents in Bergen County by about 1,300 last year, worked so well it is getting a second chance this year beginning today.
“Buckle Up and Drive Defensively” will be the theme of Operation Domino Revisited, said John Pescatore, director of the Bergen County Office of Highway Safety.
Bergen County’s 70 police departments will concentrate on enforcing the state seat-belt law, he said. “Every death [on the county’s roadways] is a defeat,” Pescatore said. “When you go to an accident and you see that 17-year-old thrown from the car because he was not wearing a seat belt, when you go to an accident and you see a child thrown through with windshield because she was not in a child-restraint seat, they bring your defeats right before you.”
Last year’s effort a pilot program to see if enforcement, coupled with community awareness and cooperation, would effectively reduce the number of accidents in the county focused on a specific violation each month.
Some of the violations focused on were speeding, tailgating, not coming to a full stop at a stop sign, and failure to signal when changing lanes.
The program was so successful that the county was able to see a 10 percent compliance jump from 45 percent to 55 percent, 5 percent above the state average with the seat belt law, Pescatore said.
Motorists should be more careful this year, Pescatore said, because the slow economy has added more cars to state highways during a season of already high travel. More families than in years past will be planning shorter but more frequent trips to state’s shores and resort areas, he said.
As a result, Bergen County will work with Atlantic County on another pilot program Operation Leapfrog, a series of public service announcements asking residents of the two counties to buckle up, watch their speed, obey the rules of the road, and not drink and drive.

Keywords: BERGEN COUNTY; POLICE; MOTOR VEHICLE; SAFETY; EQUIPMENT; VIOLATION

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.

POLICE LAYOFFS MAY FOIL TETERBORO PLAN

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

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

County Executive William “Pat” Schuber’s proposal to lay off eight county police officers this year could derail Teterboro’s plan to have the department absorb four of its officers, officials say.
The proposal would have had the department, which has 95 officers, take on the four borough police officers in exchange for compensation.
But Jerrold Binney, Schuber’s chief of staff, said the proposed layoffs would imperil that plan. Bringing in the Teterboro officers whose experience ranges from seven to 18 years would create difficulties in assessing seniority levels, he said.
Borough Manager Michael W. Tedesco could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Peter Neillands, Bergen County police chief and director of public safety, was formally notified Wednesday that 21 employees from the county Division of Public Safety, including the eight police officers, would be laid off. Freeholders have not yet formally approved the layoffs.

Keywords: BERGEN COUNTY; GOVERNMENT; OFFICIAL; TETERBORO; POLICE; EMPLOYMENT

2 HELD IN ARMED ROBBERY IN HACKENSACK

MICHAEL O. ALLEN | Sunday, December 30, 1990

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page A04

Two men were being held in the Bergen County Jail on Saturday on $20,000 bail each after their arrest in a city apartment building following a report of an armed robbery outside a convenience store, police said.
Bryan Miller, 26, of Ridgewood and Troy Jones, 30, of Englewood, who police say were staying at 370 Park St., were charged with armed robbery, Police Chief William Iurato said in a news release.
Iurato said that at 11 p.m. Friday, Miller held a gun to three men coming out of Simon Sez, a convenience store at 281 State St., while Jones emptied the men’s pockets and took about $40 and cigarettes. Miller and Jones then ran from the scene in opposite directions, Iurato said.
One of the victims stopped a passing police car, reported the robbery, and described the men, the chief said.
An investigation led to the arrest of the men at 370 Park St., Iurato said.

Keywords: ROBBERY; HACKENSACK; BERGEN COUNTY; PRISON; STORE

PAIR MAY BE LINKED TO 23 BREAK-INS; CHARGED IN NOV. 17 THEFT

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, December 2, 1990

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page A46

Two men arrested during a domestic dispute were charged with theft and burglary for one of 23 recent break-ins in the city and are suspected of being involved in the others, police said.

Walter Wiggins, 36, of 230 Central Ave., Hackensack, and Howard J. Hutchinson, 30, of Englewood were to be transferred from Englewood to the Bergen County Jail on Friday.

Englewood Police Capt. C. Kenneth Tinsley said the men were being charged with the Nov. 17 break-in of a garden apartment at 530 Broad Ave. Tinsley said items stolen from the apartment were recovered from the two.

Patrolmen Tim Torell and George Austin Jr. were responding to a call Thursday night about threats to Hutchinson’s sister, Georgia, 32, at 9-22 Rock Creek Terrace, Englewood, where they arrested Wiggins and Hutchinson, Tinsley said. A 9-inch kitchen knife was found imbedded in a wall where Wiggins had been jabbing it, he said.

Tinsley declined to say how police were able to connect the men with the burglary.

Wiggins was being held on $10,500 bail on charges of unlawful possession of a weapon, making terroristic threats, theft, and burglary. Hutchinson, being held on $5,000 bail, was charged with theft and burglary.