Myers, 79, died in a Peoria care center Sept. 24
NEWARK – Video recordings of Archbishop Emeritus John J. Myers’ Requiem and Memorial Masses, respectively held in Peoria, Ill Sept. 30 and here at the Cathedral Basal Basilica of the Sacred Heart Oct. 2, may be found on the Diocese of Peoria Facebook page and the Archdiocese of Newark’s YouTube link.
Myers, 79, had died in a Peoria care center Sept. 24. He had moved out of his Pittstown, N.J. retirement home in January to be closer to his relatives.
John Joseph Myers, who was born in Earlville, Ill., was Bishop of Peoria when Pope John Paul II called him July 24, 2020 to succeed Theodore McCarrick as Archbishop of Newark – who was moved to Washington, D.C.
Myers, despite being formally appointed Oct. 9, 2001, literally walked into a four county jurisdiction whose 1.3 million Roman Catholics were coping with the effects of the Sept 11 terrorist attacks. He presided over many funeral and memorial masses those first weeks.
Myers’ tenure, noted for his conservative approach, had its controversial aspects. His creation of a consultation board on the status of the Archdioceses’ schools led to some difficult closures.
Some critics felt that Myers had not been more assertive in the handling of sexually abusive priests. The purchase and expansion of a retirement home for Myers, though acquired in 2002 with private donations and the sale of McCarrick’s beach house, served as a bad optic.
Pope Francis, who accepted Myers’ 75th birthday resignation Nov. 7, 2016, appointed then-Indianapolis Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin to succeed him.
IRVINGTON / MAPLEWOOD – Authorities are still looking for the motorist who struck and killed an Irvington woman on a border avenue here Sept. 28.
Maplewood Police officers told ECPO Major Crime Unit detectives said they had responded to a hot-and-run report at “1016” Chancellor Ave, 2:50 that Monday morning.
They arrived to find Johanne L. Barthelemy, 29, lying on the avenue next to her parked Nissan Murano. Bathelemy, who also goes by “JoJo” and “Lala Barth,” was declared dead at the scene.
The location, just east of Lightning Brook, is by an entrance to Olympic Industrial Park, which replaced Olympic Amusement Park here in 1966-70. A makeshift shrine has been placed there in Bathelemy’s memory.
No funeral arrangements have been announced.
EAST ORANGE – Two city men and three Newarkers are accused by federal prosecutors for running a narcotics sales ring within the latter city’s Reservoir Site Townhouses since their Sept. 17 arrest.
Rasheed Gilbert, 27, said U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito that Thursday, was charged with one count of distributing cocaine and a count of distributing cocaine and heroin in January 2020.
Rahjohn Montgomery, 27, added Carpenito, was charged with one count of heroin distribution and one count of distributing heroin, fentanyl and cocaine this June.
Gilbert, Montgomery plus Newark men Naim Frazier, 32, Dayvon Rogers, 29, and Rasheen Thomas, 25 are accused of selling the narcotics in and around the West Ward housing complex from January to September. They eventually sold the drugs to informants who were working with the Newark Violent Crime Initiative task force.
Frazier, for the record, was charged with one count of distributing cocaine and fentanyl in January. Rogers was charged with two counts of cocaine distribution Aug. 1 – Sept. 16. Thomas was charged on an overall six counts of distributing cocaine and heroin June 1 – Aug. 30.
Carpenito thanked EO Police Chief Phyllis Bindi, Newark Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose, Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura and Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore “Ted” Stephens II, among 12 Newark VCI local, county, state and federal agency partners, for their assistance in this case.
East Orange Teen Shot Dead
Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore N. Stephens, II, and East Orange Police Director Domingos Saldida announced that the East Orange Police Department and the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office Homicide/Major Crimes Task Force are investigating a homicide.
On Tuesday, Oct. 6, Antoine Sanga-Niangara, 16, of East Orange was fatally shot in the area of 165 Lincoln Street in East Orange. The East Orange High School student was pronounced dead at the scene at 1:52. p.m.
No arrests have been made. The investigation is active and ongoing. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office Homicide/Major Crimes Task Force at 1-877-TIPS-4EC or 1-877-847-7432. Calls will be kept confidential.
ORANGE – A 10 a.m. viewing and 11 a.m. funeral for city man Rahjah N. Robinson, Jr. has been set for Oct. 13 Newark’s Cotton Funeral Home, 1025 Bergen St.
Robinson, 27, said Acting County Prosecutor Stephens and Orange Police Director Todd Warren, was shot along with two others along the 200 block of Oakwood Place Sept. 30.
OPD officers, responding to shots fired calls, found the fallen trio at 8:27 p.m. there. All three were rushed to Newark’s University Hospital but Robison died there at 9:10 p.m.
Authorities believe that all three were the victims of a drive-by shooting. Their investigation is continuing.
WEST ORANGE / NORTH ARLINGTON – Those West Orange residents who were wondering why they received their mail later than usual Oct. 4 may have found a reason by a North Arlington trash bin Oct. 2.
Two borough passers-by told North Arlington Police that they found 200 to 300 lbs. of printed mail alongside an industrial dumpster along the Forest Street side of 19 Schuyler Ave. 3 p.m. Friday. 19 Schulyer is a shopping plaza shared by Jack’s Super Foodtown and a Santander Bank branch.
The duo, one of whom posted photos on his Facebook page, noticed the all- printed materials included more than a few Essex County Vote By Mail ballots.
NAPD called the United State Postal Service Police, who took over the investigation. The mail was recovered and, according to USPS-Northern New Jersey spokesman George Flood, delivered.
“The mail you referenced was reported, collected and delivered,” said Flood from his Newark office. “This matter was turned over to our Office of Inspector General. We’re unable to comment further at this time.”
“We were told by USPS over the weekend,” said Gov. Phil Murphy’s Chief Counsel Matt Platkin Monday. “The mail was retrieved from the dumpster and put back into the mail stream.”
MONTCLAIR – Cuban Pete’s Restaurant got its third violation on Gov. Phil Murphy’s indoor dining executive orders in three months on Oct. 3. The Bloomfield Avenue eatery also got mentioned by State Police Superintendent Col. Patrick Callahan in Murphy’s Oct. 5 Coronavirus Briefing.
Montclair police and health department officers said that they found the volume of diners during their Saturday visit there in excess of the statewide 25 percent of capacity limit. Exceeding hat limit is in violation of Murphy’s Executive Order No. 183.
Cuban Pete’s have been cited twice in August for having indoor dining. The first, on Aug. 7, was just after what owner Domenic Restaino said was a sudden rain shower. The second, on Aug. 23, was for having diners indoors before closing time.
Although Murphy has since allowed 25 percent indoor dining, the first two violations have been aired in Montclair Municipal Court last month.
BLOOMFIELD – If you thought you had paid too much for an aerosol can of spray disinfectant from a supermarket here around March 11, then there are two high state officials who more than agree with you.
Attorney General Gurbir Grewal and Acting Consumer Affairs Director Paul Rodriguez had named Bloomfield Meat Market, LLC, better known as SuperFresh Supermarket of Bloomfield, among six grocers statewide Sept. 21 of COVID-19 related price gouging.
Bloomfield SuperFresh, of 19 Belleville Ave., is accused of selling 12-ounce cans of Lysol spray disinfectant for $11.99 each March 11 as a “Manager’s Special.”
A Division of Consumer Affairs investigator, however, found the cans being sold for $8.49 on March 5 and $4.99 March 7 – days before the Attorney General’s Office issued a March 9 order against Coronavirus-related price gouging and fraud.
As of Sept. 12, the market has been given a $1,250 Notice of Violation fine. Grewal and Rodriguez’s announcement came at the end of a summer-long judicial and appeals window process. Stores found in similar situations risk being fined from $500 to $12,500 per violation.
Bloomfield SuperFresh, nor its Ridgewood-based parent company, have not publicly responded to the announcement. The holding company bought the SuperFresh name and former A&P and Pathmark supermarkets here and in Belleville after the A&P Tea Company, of Montvale, entered bankruptcy liquidation.
Bloomfield Crossing Plaza, on the Belleville border, has always had an anchor supermarket at 19 Belleville Ave.
GLEN RIDGE – The two-year old Glen Ridge Black Diversity and Inclusion Association, in the eyes of the IRS, just became an official organization.
The IRS, said association trustee Tricia Akinwande Sept. 28, has just been awarded 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization status. Akinwande said that their being designated as a tax-deductible non profit will help GRBDIA with fundraising – one of six areas the parents group has focused on.
GRBDIA started as a series of informal meetings among Glen Ridge High School parents to address what they saw as a lack of diversity among its faculty and a lack of a voice among its African American students.
The parents then formed a group modeled after those in the South Orange-Maplewood and Bloomfield public school districts. Akinwande and five other parents were selected as their trustee board.
Each trustee was then commissioned on working one of six concentrations. Besides fundraising, a trustee is assigned to communications, community engagement, curriculum, diversity training or human resources support.
Trustees, for example, have gone out to college job fairs to seek out graduating seniors of color and suggest getting employed by Glen Ridge Public Schools.
BELLEVILLE – Acting Prosecutor Stephens is asking the public’s help in identifying a man’s body found by Belleville police officers here Aug. 20.
BPD officers said they were handling a traffic accident on Route 21 North that Thursday when they noticed a body, floating north with the tide, in the Passaic River at 7:33 a.m. They immediately called their Nutley rescue and North Arlington firefighting colleagues for assistance.
The Belleville/Nutley/North Arlington combine recovered the body but declared the man dead at 8:14 a.m. The deceased was identified as a “Hispanic man in his early 30s,” wearing a blue shirt, black pants and brown boots.
Stephens is also asking for the whereabouts of Guatemalan native Renyo Vasquez Ramirez. The body was initially identified as Ramirez’s but have been unable to make a confirmation. ECPO and the State Regional Medical Examiner’s Office have exhausted their next-of-kin leads.
NUTLEY – “What one truly learns shows up later,” took a life-saving aspect for Girl Scout Marley Madureia and her mother, Peggy, back in January – a home incident that was celebrated by the Girl Scouts USA and the Township Sept. 28.
Both Madureia, 13, and Peggy recounted the potentially lethal choking before the former received the Girl Scouts Medal of Honor from its CEO, Natasha Hemmings in Mayor Mauro Tucci’s presence.
Peggy and Marley were in the kitchen that winter’s day, the latter pulling together items for a school science project, when the former had just taken a pill for a sinus infection.
That pill, however, got lodged in her throat. Unable to breathe or speak, she began slamming the kitchen sink.
“My eyes got wide open,” recalled Marley. “I knew I had to do something because my father was (upstairs) asleep.”
Marley applied the Heimlich Maneuver on her mother, dislodging the pill – just when the awakened father ran from downstairs.
Marley learned the maneuver as part of her attaining a first aid badge – including annual first aid exercises and visits to first responders. Peggy started the troop when her daughter was in Kindergarten.
