AFTER-SCHOOL FRAY LEADS TO 7 ARRESTS; SOME FORMER STUDENTS INVOLVED

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, January 10, 1992

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

A fight involving a handful of current and former Ridgefield Park High School students broke out as a crowd of about 100 students walked home from the school, police said.

Police arrested seven people, including three students, during the fight Wednesday at about 2:30 p.m. at Overpeck Avenue and Union Place, about one-fourth mile west of the high school, Police Chief Walter Grossman said.

The dispute continued that evening in Little Ferry, where one of those arrested in the afternoon filed a simple assault charge against another who was involved in the after-school fight, Little Ferry police said. Little Ferry sends its high school students to Ridgefield Park.

“It’s all individuals who knew each other,” Grossman said. “Some were former students, and somehow or the other we don’t know how it happened they wound up at that intersection at that time.”

“There was a lot of pushing and shoving, some punching, that type of thing,” Grossman added, but he said it was unclear who fought with whom, or why. “That’s the big question. We don’t know if it’s from the past, when they knew each other.”

Charged with disorderly conduct were two 16-year-old boys who are high school students, one from Ridgefield Park, the other from Little Ferry; Lionel Quarales of Ridgefield Park, who was the third student; Horatio Hemmings of Englewood, Lawrence Pfaff of Hackensack, and Christopher Kaplan of Little Ferry, all 18-year-olds; and Amir Hakim-Davoud, 23, of Little Ferry. Hakim-Davoud and Pfaff also were charged with resisting arrest.

“They were all at one point fighting with each other,” Grossman said. “Right now, I couldn’t tell you who was fighting whom. Our officers got there just in time to pull them apart.”

No one was injured.

Later that night, the juveniles were released to the custody of their parents and the adults were released on their own recognizance pending a court date later in the month, the chief said.

“We’ll look into it further to determine why this thing happened,” Grossman said. “Occasionally, we’ve had kids have a little argument here and there, but not with the kind of number that we had here. And, of course, some of the kids were from out of town, which is dangerous.”

Little Ferry Police Capt. Dennis Hofmann said officers responded to a report of a crowd and a disturbance on Main Street at about 8:40 p.m. The crowd had thinned out by the time police arived, but Quarales, alleging that he had been hit with a pipe or a stick, signed a complaint of simple assault against Hemmings, Hofmann said.

BUS DRIVER SAYS PUPILS ATTACKED HIM BEFORE

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Saturday, November 16, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | Two Star B | Section: NEWS | Page A02

The school bus driver who police say was assaulted by five students he was taking to Leonia High School said Thursday’s attack was not the first.

George Sanint, 25, of Fort Lee is in Englewood Hospital, where he is being treated for a broken nose and a fractured left eye socket. Some of the same students attacked him 10 months ago when they were in middle school, but the school failed to do anything about it, he said Friday.

Dr. Frank Marlow, Leonia schools superintendent, said he has no record of an earlier attack.

Meanwhile, one of the accused youths signed a simple-assault complaint against Sanint on Friday, Police Chief John Orso said.

Police planned to have patrol cars follow school buses at random to prevent further incidents. A Taranto Bus Co. spokesman said an aide will be assigned to each bus.

Sanint said that upon boarding the bus in Edgewater, one of the youths blew him a kiss, which sparked unruly behavior and harassment throughout the trip.

“When you are driving a school bus with 52 kids every day,” Sanint said, “you have to concentrate on what you are doing. So it’s very difficult to drive when everybody is harassing you.”

Sanint said one of the students punched him in the eye as he stood in the back of the bus warning the students to behave. Four others then joined in.

Marlow said the district is investigating a report that the fight began after Sanint grabbed a student by the shirt collar. Sanint denies the report.

The youths, 15 to 17 years old, are from Edgewater, which sends its middle and high school students to Leonia. They were charged with aggravated assault-juvenile delinquency.

One youth’s family declined to comment; the others could not be reached.

The students were suspended for two weeks, and other disciplinary measures are possible, Marlow said.

SCHOOL BUS DRIVER IS BEATEN BY STUDENTS

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, November 15, 1991

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

A 25-year-old school bus driver was attacked by five of the students he was taking to Leonia High School Thursday morning and was hospitalized with facial injuries, police said.

George Sanint, an employee of the Taranto Bus Co., suffered injuries to his nose and left eye, Fort Lee Police Chief John Orso said. Sanint was in stable condition in the Englewood Hospital emergency room Thursday, a hospital spokeswoman said.

The youths, Edgewater residents between the ages of 15 and 17, were each charged with aggravated assault-juvenile deliquency and were released to the custody of their parents, Orso said. Edgewater sends students from seventh grade through high school to Leonia.

Dr. Frank Marlow, superintendent of the Leonia school district, said the five boys have been suspended for two weeks.

“The school district has taken very strong actions against the youngsters involved, and we are investigating the alleged involvement of the bus driver as well, the extent to which he instigated this,” Marlow said. “This is not to excuse the students. They’ve been severely punished. We just don’t tolerate behavior like this.”

The incident occurred about 7:50 a.m. on Anderson Avenue, near Route 5 in Fort Lee. Marlow said the school was investigating a report that Sanint stopped the bus when he heard two students, one black, the other white, hurl racial insults at each other in jest.

“From what I heard, the bus driver thought the remarks were directed at him,” Marlow said.

URBAN LEAGUE HONORS STUDENTS

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Monday, June 3, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page B02

Christopher Sanders said he did not know he would receive an award at the annual Urban League Salute to African American Scholars until he arrived at the ceremonies Sunday in Hackensack.

“I looked in the program and it was like `Wow, first place! It’s inspiring,” said the Teaneck High School student.

Sanders essay on Democratic Party National Chairman Ronald Brown won him first place and a $1,000 scholarship. He said he plans to study architecture at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark this fall.

About 300 camera-toting parents packed Fairleigh Dickinson University’s Edward Williams College auditorium to see the Urban League recognize and honor some 70 North Jersey middle and high school students.

After apologizing to the audience for the broken air conditioning that created sweltering conditions in the auditorium, FDU President Francis Mertz received applause when he announced that the school will award a four-year, $12,500 scholarship to an Urban League honoree every year, beginning in 1992.

Lenworth Gunther, president of Edmedia Associates Inc. and the day’s keynote speaker, said the students being honored were revolutionaries in a sense because they were defying stereotypes.

“This is just the first stage of what will be many honors and many recognitions, I hope,” Gunther said. “I want you brothers and sisters to understand that I am you, just a little older version. I don’t want to be expendable and I don’t want you to be expendable.”

Among the parents who attended were Edris Clarke, whose daughter Debbie Laine Clark, received an award for excellence. She will begin pre-med studies at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y., this fall.

“I’m very proud of my daughter,” the elder Clarke said. “She is a very conscientious student . . . She says to me, `Mommy, I know where I’m going and I’m going to get there by God’s grace.”

Keywords: AWARD; BLACK; HACKENSACK; ORGANIZATION; STUDENT

Caption: PHOTO – COLLETTE FOURNIER / THE RECORD – Christopher Sanders of Teaneck congratulating fellow award-winner Michele M. Cherville of Paterson.

THREATS LAID TO STUDENTS; 4 NABBED IN BCC BOMB SCARE CASES

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Thursday, May 9, 1991

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

Four Bergen Community College students, including one who wanted to avoid an ethics exam, have been charged with telephoning bomb threats to the school in two incidents last month, police said Wednesday.
The arrests were the first since the school was hit by a series of bomb threats and false fire alarms beginning last fall, said college Executive Vice President Virginia Laughlin.
Detective Edward Sorace of the Bergen County Police Department said six bomb threats and numerous false fire alarms have been called in to the school since the beginning of the year.
Sorace on Monday arrested Mark Morrell, 22, of North Arlington and charged him with making a false public alarm when he called the school switchboard about 3 p.m. April 26 to report the presence of two bombs.
Renee Roddi, 20, of Kearny, Morrell’s girlfriend at the time he allegedly made the call, also was arrested and charged with conspiring to make the call. Morrell made the call so Roddi could avoid an ethics-course examination that day, police said.
Sorace also arrested Nancy Incorvaia of Wayne at work in Parsippany-Troy Hills on April 29. Police said Incorvaia, 19, called the school’s public-safety office about 11:30 a.m. April 23 to report a bomb at the school.
Lucy Rocco, 21, also of Wayne and charged with conspiracy in that case, wanted to avoid a business-math class and asked Incorvaia to call in the bomb threat, police said.
Sorace declined to say how police discovered which students made the calls, but said he expects to make more arrests. If convicted, the students each released on $2,500 bail would face up to 18 months in jail and fines up to $7,500.
Laughlin said the school was considering disciplinary action against the students, but she declined to elaborate.

Keywords: BC; COLLEGE; BOMB; STUDENT

MAN HELD IN STUDENT’S DEATH PAROLEE FACES MURDER CHARGE

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, April 14, 1991

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

A 23-year-old Spring Valley, N.Y., man on parole for possession of a loaded weapon was being held without bail Saturday in the stabbing death of Kissinger Shiimi, a Ramapo College student leader.
Peter Ralph Finley, who police say is a Jamaican national, was arrested in Brooklyn on Friday. He was charged with second-degree murder and was being held in the Rockland County Correctional Center pending a hearing.
Shiimi, a 30-year-old senior majoring in political science, died about 5:30 a.m. April 6 at Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern, N.Y. He had been stabbed five times by one of two men arguing with him over a fender bender outside the Atlantic Gas ‘n Go, a Spring Valley gas station and convenience store, police said.
Tom M. Jones, Ramapo College’s director of public relations, said Finley’s arrest is a relief to students who have been grappling with the violent death of Shiimi, whom they regarded as a peacemaker and bridge-builder.
Hinyangerwa Asheeke, Namibia’s ambassador to the United Nations, on Friday escorted Shiimi’s body back to Namibia, the southwest African country where Shiimi fought oppression, then escaped to come to the United States to build a better life.
Asheeke was Shiimi’s uncle, but they first met about a month ago at a reception celebrating Namibia’s first year of independence from South Africa.
At Ramapo, Shiimi won the Aly Makwaia Scholarship named for an African student at the college who was stabbed to death in 1987.
On the day he died, Shiimi and two fellow students had gone to a nightclub in Spring Valley. They stopped at the gas station about 4:30 a.m., when the car the three were traveling in tapped the bumper of the other car. Police refused to say who was driving the car that carried Shiimi.
Two men in the other car argued with Shiimi and one stabbed him, police said. The men, along with a woman in their company, fled in a red Nissan with a white stripe. Police described both men as having Jamaican accents, and said one had a gold front tooth. It was unclear from police reports Saturday whether Finley has a gold tooth.
At the Spring Valley Police Department’s request, detectives from the New York Police Department’s 70th Precinct in Brooklyn had been checking the home of Finley’s relatives on Sterling Street, said Sgt. Mary Wrensen, a city police spokeswoman. They found Finley there about 8:30 p.m. Friday. He had an airline ticket to Florida, police said.
Police are looking for the other man and the woman. No further details of the investigation were available.

Keywords: NEW JERSEY; COLLEGE; STUDENT; MURDER

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

KIDS EXCITED BY DRUG LESSONS PARAMUS PROGRAM DRAWS ENTHUSIASM

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, February 13, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | Four Star B | NORTH CENTRAL BERGEN/YOUR TOWN RECORD | Page 1

To fifth-graders at the Paramus public schools, the Police Department’s DARE program urging children to stay away from drugs is a hit.
And to Paramus Police Detective Kevin Smith and Patrolman Bill Nutland, who are coordinating the 18-week pilot Drug Abuse Resistance Education program at Eastbrook and Westbrook middle schools, the students enthusiasm has been infectious.
The excitement was evident at DARE flag-raising ceremonies at the two schools. A rousing ovation, punctuated with “woof, woof, woof,” a la Arsenio Hall’s “dog pound,” greeted Nutland and Smith when they spoke before 115 10- and 11-year-olds and their teachers gathered at the gymnasium of the Westbrook School last week.
The officers were treated to a similar reception several weeks earlier at the Eastbrook School.
Both times the children had gathered to hoist the DARE flag and recite the pledge to say no to drugs. Rainy weather moved last week’s ceremony indoors. The change did not discourage the children, however. They remained as rambunctious as ever.
“What are you going to say when someone comes to you on the street and says, `Hey kid, you want to try some drugs? ” Nutland asked.
“No!” came the deafening reply, their voices bouncing off the walls of the gymnasium.
“Do you really mean it?” asked Nutland, like a preacher warming to the task.
“Yes!” echoed the chorus.
The DARE flag black with DARE in red letters and the credo, “To Keep Kids off Drugs,” in white is to remind visitors to the school that DARE is there, working everyday of the year, Nutland told the students.
The message seems to be sinking in. The children excitedly talked about what they are learning and how they feel about Nutland, Smith, and the other officers from the Police Department who come and help out.
Westbrook School’s Sumon Nandy, 10, said he learned that drugs are bad for him and could kill him. Jennifer Ward, 10, of the Eastbrook School said all the children were always excited to have “Kevin” Detective Smith around.
The officers go to the schools Nutland at Westbrook and Smith at Eastbrook three times each week. They play softball and football with the children and teach the DARE curriculum, which Eastbrook Principal Barbara Hyde said focuses on self-esteem and drug-related education.
Hyde said the school district and the Police Department chose the fifth grade to start the pilot program because it is a critical age to try to reach the children: They are under less parental supervision; they are sometimes with older students; and they are exposed to bad influences from the television and other media.
“There are more chances for them to make wrong decisions,” Hyde said. “There’s no guarantee that this is going to turn the world around, but a lot of things haven’t worked and this is a really positive program.”

Keywords: PARAMUS; DRUG; ABUSE; STUDENT; CHILD; SCHOOL; POLICE

Caption: COLOR PHOTO – ED HILL / THE RECORD – Fifth-graders standing with policemen who taught them how to avoid drugs. From left, Keith Smollin, Detective Kevin Smith, Laura Hofsommer, Patrolman Bill Nutland, and T.J. Cullen.

FDU STUDENT HURT IN FIGHT

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, January 20, 1991

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

An 18-year-old Fairleigh Dickinson University student who was kicked in the face and knocked down a flight of stairs during a fight in a Teaneck dormitory Saturday was in stable condition after an operation to remove blood on his brain, a hospital spokeswoman said.
Gerald P. Romano of Bristol, R.I., was unconscious when he arrived at Hackensack Medical Center at 12:30 a.m. following the fight in a dormitory hallway, Teaneck Police Officer Veronica Thornton reported.
Romano had a blood alcohol content of 0.21 percent, according to the report.
Bergen County Prosecutor John J. Fahy said his office wants to find out what caused the fight. But he said he does not expect anyone to be charged with a crime.
Witnesses told police that Ricardo Carter, 19, of East Orange kicked Romano in the face and knocked him down the stairs of the Linden 3B dormitory.
One of the witnesses, Candace Mitchell, 18, of Clearwater, Fla., said in an interview Saturday that Romano had been involved in a fight minutes earlier with Scott Barrett, 18, of Teaneck.

Keywords: TEANECK; COLLEGE; STUDENT; ASSAULT

YOUTH WHO HAD GUN IN HIS LOCKER TO BE HELD

By Michael O. Allen and David Voreacos, Record Staff Writers | Wednesday, November 28, 1990

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

A 17-year-old Teaneck High School senior, arrested this week after officials found a loaded semiautomatic pistol in his locker, will be detained until a juvenile court hearing scheduled for Dec. 7, police said.

The student, whose identity was withheld by police, faces a juvenile delinquency charge of possession of a weapon within an educational institution, said Capt. Gary Fiedler.

He was arrested Monday morning and was being held Tuesday in the Bergen County Juvenile Detention Center in Paramus.

The student also has been suspended from school, said Judy Distler, a school spokeswoman who said she had no further information on any disciplinary measures.

Authorities were alerted to the location of the gun by Principal James DeLaney, who called police at 9:15 a.m. Monday after receiving a confidential tip, said a report written by Detective Frank McCall of the Youth Bureau.

McCall went to the school and, with DeLaney and Assistant Principal Joseph White, removed a California-made .380 Kurtz semiautomatic pistol from a first-floor locker. The gun was loaded with four bullets in a magazine and one in the chamber, McCall said.

Police were attempting Tuesday to determine how the youth got the gun, Fiedler said.
He said the senior has a police record but he would not elaborate on it.