SUSPECT IN BURGLARY SPREE WAS OUT ON BAIL

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, October 26, 1990

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

The chief suspect in more than 40 cat burglaries in four Bergen County communities over the past two months had been arrested on burglary charges in one of the towns in July and freed on bail.

Celious Lee Harmon of Teaneck, who was arrested Monday night on burglary charges, had spent nearly a month this summer in the Bergen County Jail after being arrested on burglary charges in Englewood, police said.

Harmon, who was captured Monday as he tried to flee from police at the Port Authority’s George Washington Bridge bus terminal in Manhattan, is fighting extradition to New Jersey, said Fort Lee Police Chief John Orso.

Police say that after Harmon posted $5,000 bail on the Englewood charges, he began burglarizing homes in Englewood, Englewood Cliffs, Fort Lee, and Tenafly in early September.

Orso said Harmon, 28, often rode the bus from New York City into affluent sections of the communities, broke into homes and stole valuables, and then rode the bus back across the bridge to the bus terminal, where he sold the stolen goods to support a crack cocaine habit.

Capt. C. Kenneth Tinsley of Englewood said that when the four-town burglary spree began Sept. 5, the Englewood Police Department knew who its chief suspect was. So did the Fort Lee Police Department.

“We knew who we were looking for because we had a set of footprints and a set of fingerprints,” Orso said. “We also knew he was traveling by bus between New York and New Jersey. “

The four communities formed a 30-person task force to track him down, but he eluded them. By the time he was captured Monday, he was suspected of more than 40 home burglaries in the four towns.

He was arrested after a chase by two Fort Lee and two Port Authority police officers at 180th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan.

Tinsley said that Harmon’s arrest in Englewood in July came after a chase. He allegedly had broken into a home in the East Hill section of city. Police also found property stolen from a residence on Gloucester Street strewn along the path of the chase.

Harmon was arrested in Fort Lee in 1985 and sentenced to five years in prison after conviction on three counts of burglary, two counts of receiving stolen goods, two counts for possession of burglary tools, and two counts of resisting arrest. He was also a suspect in 18 other burglaries in Fort Lee, Orso said. He was paroled in 1988.

SHOTS FIRED IN FDU MELEE; 5 injured in violence after party in Teaneck

By David Voreacos and Michael Allen, Record Staff Writers | Saturday, September 15, 1990

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

Gunfire and violence erupted early Friday after a student party at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, injuring five people and prompting the suspension of evening social activities in the Student Union Building.

A festering rivalry between Hackensack and Teaneck residents who are not students sparked the fight, which broke out about 1:25 a.m. after 200 attended a party in the Student Union sponsored by Alpha Phi Alpha, a black fraternity on campus, authorities said.

Police and students said two groups of outsiders who attended the party tossed trash cans and threw punches in front of the building. An unidentified gunman then fired about six shots from an automatic handgun, scattering the crowd and hitting the Student Union three times.

Witnesses said about two dozen people were involved in the fight.

No one was hit by gunfire, but Kendal Brown, 24, of Teaneck was hit on the head with a pipe. He was in serious condition Friday at Holy Name Hospital. Charles Daniels, 26, of Teaneck was in good condition with a stab wound to the chest.

Police had made no arrests by late Friday afternoon.

University officials suspended social activities in the Student Union, where many parties are held, and suspended Alpha Phi Alpha, pending a hearing next week to assess the group’s responsibility.

FDU also will study ways to tighten campus security, a spokeswoman said.

“It’s the outside community coming on campus,” said senior Jason Harris, president of 100 Black Men, an FDU student group. “This has been an ongoing problem, but last night it really got out of hand. “

Alexander McLucas Jr., a 19-year-old FDU student, suffered a bruised collarbone while fleeing the scene, and Ilyas Ali, 25, of Teaneck suffered a back laceration when someone attacked him with a beer bottle, police said. Both were treated at Holy Name and released.

Reginald Allen, a 36-year-old campus security guard from Hackensack, was cut on a leg with glass but refused medical treatment.

Three hours after the shooting, police confiscated a revolver from the car of Anthony Christopher Brown, an 18-year-old FDU student from Huntington Station, N.Y. No charges were filed Friday against Brown.

Caption: PHOTO – ED HILL / THE RECORD – Alexander McLucas Jr. of Newark was injured in the FDU brawl.