GUARDS BLAME INMATES FOR JAIL STAMPEDE; Testify in Overcrowding Suit

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, May 1, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | 5 Star | NEWS | B03

Inmates protesting the food service at the Bergen County Jail trampled three corrections officers in a stampede for the dining room door before guard dogs were sent in to quell the January disturbance, several officers testified Thursday.

Corrections Officer Joseph Mastropole said the inmates ignored his command that they leave the dining room in an orderly fashion.

Mastropole’s account and those of three other officers followed testimony in February from six inmates in a federal lawsuit charging overcrowding at the jail. The suit was filed in Newark in 1988, and Thursday’s testimony was heard in Hackensack.

Instead of leaving one table at a time, with the first table in the room leaving first, several inmates at the back tables headed for the door.

“I said, `Wait a minute, the first table has to leave first, ” Mastropole said. “The next thing I knew, 20 to 30 inmates got up and were heading toward me. . . . I was just overwhelmed by the inmates. They pushed me to the floor.”

Corrections Officer Brian J. Irwin testified that he was kicked and punched by inmates. He said that Gregory Cannell, an inmate who later was charged with aggravated assault on a police officer in the incident, took a swing at him but missed.

“It happened so fast,” Irwin said, adding that the officers were unable to keep the inmates inside the dining room.

A grand jury will decide whether to indict Cannell and another inmate, Howard Tucker, on charges of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer in the disturbance.

The corrections officers versions of the incident matched that of the inmates, except on who attacked whom in the ensuing melee. Officers said Cannell and Tucker physically attacked them, and were cursing and yelling at them.

In their February testimony, six inmates said the officers on duty were the ones who attacked them and ordered guard dogs after them. Cannell, who later served 37 days in isolation and is being housed in the main jail as a problem inmate, was treated for three dog-bite wounds.

Although most of the officers involved went to the medical unit for examination, none was injured.

Deputy Bergen County Counsel Murshell Johnson said outside the courtroom that the officers testimonies showed they resolved in a calm and professional manner a dangerous situation that could have led to many injuries.

Assistant Deputy Public Advocate Audrey Bomse questioned the officers credibility, however. She asked each officer if he had ever verbally or physically abused an inmate, or had seen another officer do so. All said no.

The hearings, part of a federal lawsuit to reduce overcrowding in the Bergen County Jail, will resume in May for further testimony from officers.

MEDIA UNFAIR, TEAMSTERS LOCAL SAYS

By MICHAEL O. ALLEN | Sunday, October 6, 1991

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

Members of Teamsters Local 560 marched to the state’s largest media outlets Saturday to protest what they called unfair news coverage of the union’s battle with government to elect its own leaders.
Starting with a rally in front of the local’s office in Union City, about 100 members came to The Record, then went to WWOR-TV in Secaucus. Newark police could not confirm whether the members went to The Star-Ledger in Newark, as they had announced they would.
When Local 560 filed a petition in U.S. District Court in Newark three weeks ago to end the six-year trusteeship of the union, “the news media gave minimal coverage,” said Bob Marra, secretary-treasurer of the local. “When the government filed their return brief . . . all the news media, including The Record, gave it front-page coverage.”
The government opposed the appointment of former President Michael Sciarra as business agent. In January, a federal judge banned him from positions of influence, ruling that the Genovese crime family was trying to resume control of the Teamsters through him. Sciarra is appealing the decision.

Keywords: HACKENSACK; MEDIA; UNION; GOVERNMENT; ELECTION; NEWSPAPER; DEMONSTRATION; UNION CITY; THE RECORD; SECAUCUS

VANDALISM INCIDENTS PROBED IN TEANECK

MICHAEL O. ALLEN | Saturday, April 13, 1991

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

Township police are investigating five incidents of vandalism along Teaneck Road in which windows at two businesses, a private residence, and the Bryant School were broken Thursday night.
In the first incident, about 5:30 p.m., a woman reported that someone threw a rock through the passenger side window of her car parked on Sherman Avenue, near Teaneck Road.
The vandalism occurred in the wake of an impromptu march Wednesday by students marking the first anniversary of the death of Phillip C. Pannell, a black 16-year-old who was shot by a white township police officer. The window of a police cruiser was shattered.

Keywords: TEANECK; DEMONSTRATION; ANNIVERSARY; VANDALISM; POLICE; SHOOTING; YOUTH; DEATH

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.