by Walter Elliott
NEWARK – Both the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office and the Newark Police Division have said little of the man found dead in a public school here Aug. 7 outside of stating that no foul play was involved.
Emergency responders told Newark detectives, the ECPO Homicide/Major Crimes Task Force members and the New Jersey Regional Medical Examiner that they were allowed into 142 Mt. Vernon Place at about 3:50 p.m. Friday. The Mt. Vernon School there had been closed to students since March and instructional staff this summer.
They said they had indeed found “an unconscious and unresponsive man” in the building as per the emergency call. The man, believed to be in his 60s, was later declared dead at the scene.
Responders said that they “believe that the man had a massive heart attack” while at work on the property. The deceased has been called “a laborer” in reports – although it is not clear whether he was a Newark Public Schools employee or was working for an NPS vendor or contractor.
Although the county task force was called into the Ivy Hill section elementary school as a standard operating procedure, ECPO has not announced that it is conducting an investigation. Responders added that the man’s dead was not COVID-19 Novel Coronavirus-related.
IRVINGTON – A township man, said Newark police, is wanted for a string of vehicle-related thefts done in a critical area of their city.
Newark Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose said Aug. 11 that Rashon Hayes, 29, of Irvington, is wanted for questioning. They want to know what Hayes knows of items taken from several vehicles parked at the Ivy Hill Apartments July 15 – Aug. 9.
Ambrose did not say why or how Hayes may be linked to those thefts. He did not say whether the burglaries were done on vehicles parked in the apartment complex’s lot or along its side streets.
The Ivy Hill Apartments, at 200 Mt. Vernon Place, borders Maplewood and South Orange and is within walking distance of Irvington and East Orange.
EAST ORANGE – City police detectives are investigating the circumstances of a man opening fire on at least two or up to four people here near the Newark border Aug. 8.
EOPD officers responded to gunfire reports from a block of Steuben Street at 10:30 p.m. Saturday. They promptly taped off the block and soon found “a female victim suffering a non-life threatening gunshot injury” and a “male struck by a bullet.”
Residents told police that a man had arrived minutes before and “fired multiple shots in the direction of several people.” They said the male victim was shielding the female during the shooting.
Neighbors added that there may have been two more people hit by bullets before the suspect left. The two injured people were taken to a local hospital for treatment and release.
The Steuben Street shooting is so far not connected to an Aug. 9 shooting at 59 Ampere Pkwy. that left a man severely injured. Witnesses said that “a light colored four-door car” had stopped there at 11:30 p.m. Sunday so that its passenger could shoot the unidentified man.
ORANGE – A makeshift shrine for James B. Allen, Jr. has been set up a corner of the East Orange intersection where the city bicyclist was struck and killed July 29.
The shrine, marked by white and blue candles, was set on a lot off the southeast corner of Freeway Drive East and Evergreen Place. The lot, used for local office building parking, is near the crosswalk where Allen and his bicycle were found by police 2:30 p.m. that Wednesday.
ECPO and east Orange police detectives said that at least two vehicles had struck Allen, with one remaining at the scene.
Allen’s funeral services have not yet been announced as of presstime. The county continues its investigation.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – The Maplewood-South Orange Youth Coalition’s Aug. 9 painting of its “Black Lives Matter” street mural here along the latter’s Springfield Avenue may have to wait awhile.
MAPSO YC, given its reason for putting off Sunday’s painting, may be waiting into Autumn. The group, on its Facebook page Saturday, cited “an uptick in COVID-19 cases” for postponing to a yet-to-be-announced date. Sunday afternoon, as it turned out, was punctuated by a strong wind and rainstorm.
South Orange and Maplewood already have an on-street BLM mural – and perhaps the only one in the country painted by a municipal border – since July 2.
The Maplewood Township Committee had its DWP workers paint “BLACK LIVES MATTER” along Valley Road between Parker Road and Hixon Place, by the South Orange border. The yellow capital letters face Columbia High School, which is shared by both municipalities.
It is presumed that the Essex County DPW Division of Roads and Bridges had granted Maplewood permission for the street painting like it had for one – fronting the county’s Hall of Records – along Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard in Newark.
Where the lettering was painted were on parts of Valley and King are also county-owned roads.
Newark, for the record, also has a similar BLM mural along its Halsey Street south of Central Avenue.
MONTCLAIR / WEST ORANGE – DeCamp Bus Line riders here and in seven other “Local Talk” towns, since Aug. 7, find themselves taking alternate transportation modes for the second time in five months.
Some of the around 400 average daily rush hour riders from the four bus routes that DeCamp revived June 8 may be taking Community Coach 77 line at the Essex County Codey Recreation Complex. Community Coach 77 parent, CoachUSA, said on Aug. 6 it will honor DeCamp tickets Aug. 10-31.
NJTransit is also cross-honoring DeCamp tickets on bus routes that either go directly into New York City or on a combination of local buses that feed its Montclair-Boonton or Morris & Essex commuter rail lines. Its buses include the No. 191, 192, 705, 72, 29, 28, 21 and 13 routes that serve parts of Upper Montclair, Bloomfield Avenue, Main Street/King Boulevard or Washington Avenue/Broadway.
Jonathan DeCamp, from his Greenwood Avenue garage office Aug. 5, declared that all service would be indefinitely suspended as of Midnight Aug. 7. That suspension includes its casino and charter bus service plus the layoff of all 160 personnel except the human resources officer and an accountant.
DeCamp, Aug. 5, cited continuing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic for putting the 150-year-old family company into an induced coma. The company CEO told several reporters that the 6,616 average pre-pandemic daily riders had dwindled to around 400.
DeCamp said that he had hoped more NYC offices would reopen, drawing more riders aboard, for resuming June 8. Although the company stretched its seven weeks of Federal CARES Act Payroll Protection Program funds to 16 weeks, it could not meet expenses with 400 riders.
What bothers riders and local officials is that the Aug. 7 suspension is more indefinite than DeCamp’s March 24 shutdown. DeCamp said that he will see whether more offices will open and more riders will come aboard “in September.” He is also urging riders to urge Congressional passage of the Coronavirus Economic Relief for Transportation Services Act, based that New Jersey’s $1.4 billion share of the CARES Act funds went all to NJTransit.
DeCamp told one reporter that he is negotiating with NJTransit about taking over its bus routes. NJYTransit spokeswoman Nancy Snyder said that the state agency “is not about to absorb” DeCamp’s routes.
GLEN RIDGE – Those taking NJTransit’s Montclair Boonton Line from here or nearby local stations found their Aug. 11 afternoon rush hour trains delayed by up to 20 minutes.
NJTransit reported that “signal issues near Bloomfield” caused several trains to be 15 to 20 minutes late Tuesday. The problem, which may have been on the Bloomfield-Glen Ridge border, was resolved by 5 p.m.
An equipment problem with a train at the Montclair State University station cancelled the 7:10 a.m. eastbound local train there and turned the 7:10 express into an all-local-stops train.
NJTransit restored service along the MBL and M&E lines in time for Aug. 10’s morning rush hour – six days after they were suspended Noon Aug. 4 due to storm-related fallen trees and utility wires.
BELLEVILLE / BLOOMFIELD – People both at Belleville’s Municipal Building and the Bloomfield Board of Education Administration Building are united in mourning for James A. Messina III since his Aug. 5 death.
Messina, 73, was Belleville’s First Ward Councilman 1990-2000 and Mayor 1994-96. He had previously been a Bloomfield BOE member 1978-79. Messina’s Belleville and Bloomfield strands started in his formative years. Born in Belleville’s Silver Lake section, June 13, 1947, he was raised in Bloomfield and was among Bloomfield High’s graduating Class of 1965.
Messina’s Bloomfield time was interrupted by the Vietnam War and studies at Northeastern Louisiana University. The MACS intelligence officer became a member and unofficial mayor of AMVETS Belleville Post 26. He graduated from LSU with a degree in English literature.
“Big Jim,” his exuberance, loud laugh and mustache would grace many a masonry and construction project in the two-township area. The JMP Construction founder was proudest of renovating Belleville High School’s baseball field and, with father James II, the Belleville Little League field and house.
Messina moved to Belleville before the township council took a ward and at- large format. He was elected First Ward Councilman, which includes Silver Lake, by a two-to-one margin in 1990 and was re-elected in 1992 and 1996. His council colleagues named him mayor 1994-96, during renovations of the Municipal and Public Works buildings and completion of the Public Safety Building.
Messina, who owned the Belleville Pub in the 1980s, was the DPW Commissioner until his 2009 retirement. Wife Maria, brother Michael, sisters Karmel Ann Citrodello, Deana Nisivoccis and Kathy Cooney; two grandsons and four granddaughters are among his survivors. Memorial donations may be made to Vietnam Veterans of America vva.org/donations or the St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital stjude.org
NUTLEY – ECPO spokeswoman Katherine Carter announced on Aug. 7 that they are dismissing the township police department’s cyberbullying charges against five people who posted and redistributed a detective’s image during the June 26 Christopher Columbus statue confrontation.
“After reviewing the cases, we concluded there was insufficient evidence to sustain our burden of proof,” said carter Friday. “Consequently, we moved today to dismiss the charges.”
Belleville residents Kevin Alfano, Diana Lubizaca and Kamila Mikulec, Nutleyite Andrew Koslecki and Georgana Sziszak, of Queens Village. N.Y. said they received NPD summonses in the mail six weeks after the Nutley for Black Lives and counter-demonstrators’ face off.
Alfano was accused of posting on his Twitter account a photo of an NPD officer between the demonstrators, wearing a “Blue Lives Matter” flag mask and adding “If anyone knows who this b—h is, throw his info under this tweet.” The other four were accused of reposting the photo and message on their Twitter accounts.
The NPD officer was later identified as Det. P.J. Sandomenico. The summons filers said that Sandomenico had come to fear for harm to himself, his family and their property from the five’s postings.
The five, all between 18 and 21 in ages, were facing a fourth-degree felony. They, if found guilty, were to have each faced maximums of $10,000 in fines and 18 months state imprisonment.
Alfano and Sziszak have started GoFundMe.com fundraiser pages for legal bills.
