NEWARK – Relatives and friends of an Irvington youth pastor will give him his last rites in the township Oct. 15 – 14 days after he was struck and killed by a speeding driver here along Somerset Street Oct. 1.
The remains of Rev. Israel Razak Adebayo, 56, are to be laid to rest in his native Easton, Pa.’s Gethsemane Cemetery 1:30 p.m. Friday before mourners return to Irvington’s Christ Glory International Ministry for his homegoing service.
Associates and witnesses said Adebayo died while helping out a friend by making repairs under a Nissan Altima that was parked along Somerset Street the early afternoon of Oct. 1.
Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore “Ted” Stephens and Newark Public Safety Director Brian O’Hara said that a Dodge Charger, “traveling at a high rate of speed,” struck the Altima.
Adebayo was declared dead at 2:55 p.m. Any charges against the Charger’s driver, who stayed at the scene, have not been made public. ECPO’s Homicide/Major Crimes Task Force conducted the investigation.
Adebayo is survived by his wife and four daughters, among others. A GoFudMe.com page has been established to help his family.
IRVINGTON – Relatives and friends of a township man have been left to make last rites since his fatal Oct. 2 shooting here.
Irvington Public Safety Director Tracy Bowers said that his police officers responded to gunfire reports from Madison Avenue at 3:30 p.m. that Saturday. IPD officers found Jarod Rogers, 22, lying near the Myrtle Avenue intersection with a gunshot wound.
Rogers was declared dead at the scene at 3:33 p.m. His murder case was turned over to the ECPO Homicide/Major Crimes Task Force.
EAST ORANGE – City and county authorities are looking for the person who shot dead a West Orange resident here in the teen streets section Oct. 5.
East Orange Police Chief Phyllis Bindi said that several of her officers had responded to a gunfire report from the 100 block of North 18th Street, 8:30 p.m. that Tuesday.
Responding officers found a woman – identified Oct. 8 as Nicole M. Lee, 32, with gunshot wounds near William Street. Medics rushed her to University Hospital – where she died at 3:26 a.m. Oct. 7.
Bindi promptly turned over the Lee shooting case to the ECPO Homicide Task Force. Lee’s funeral announcement has not been made as of Oct. 12.
ORANGE – There have been no public funeral arrangements made for a Pierson Street man while the driver who fatally struck his parked car has been charged in relation to his Sept. 23 death.
Orange Public Safety Director Todd Warren and ECPO Acting Prosecutor Stephens said that Donald Banks, 65, was working beside his car when Chadane Bailey, 26, of Orange, pulled into 166 Pierson St.’s driveway at 12:45 a.m. that Thursday.
The impact of Bailey’s car, added Warren, crushed Banks. First responders rushed Banks to University Hospital, where he was declared dead. at 12:53 a.m.
Bailey, who stayed at the scene, was charged with causing death while operating with a suspended license and cocaine possession. Both lived at 166 Pierson, a three-story, six-apartment building constructed in 1904.
WEST ORANGE – Stephens and West Orange Chief of Police James Abbott is asking for the public’s help in finding the car, and its driver, who struck and killed a resident on an Interstate-280 overpass Sept. 30.
Abbott said that his responding officers found Maria F. Pasturizaca-Yauri, 67, on Brennan Drive near the Mt. Pleasant Avenue intersection at 7:17 p.m. that Thursday. Pasturizaca-Yauri was taken by ambulance to University Hospital – where she died at 8:15 p.m.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – The South Orange-Maplewood School District’s first findings of what did or did not happen in a Seth Boyden second grade classroom Oct. 6 – and/or the public’s first questions to the Board of Education on the matter – may be at the latter’s Oct. 18 at 7:30 p.m.
“Today (Oct. 7) we were made aware of an allegation of discrimination and immediately began an investigation,” declared the district that Wednesday night. “We were alerted to social media posts related to the allegation. Social Media is not a reliable forum for due process and the staff member(s) involved are entitled to due process before any action is taken.”
The SOMSD statement continued with abiding by legal obligations to keep personnel and student matters confidential. The district, it said, is committed to diversity, equity and inclusion. An Assistant Superintendent of Equity and Equity is being created and restorative practices will be implemented “to help our students, staff and families process the socio-emotional harms done.”
Maplewood native and Olympic medalist Ibtihaj Muhammad, early that Thursday, posted on her Facebook page that the Seth Boyden teacher had “forcibly” removed a hajib headscarf from a student’s head during a class. Muhammad, according to one Oct. 7 news outlet is a friend of the student’s mother and, in a Tweet, named the teacher.
Samantha Harris, a Quaker Hill, Conn. civil rights attorney is more than saying she represents the teacher in question. Harris said that the teacher “directed a student in her class to pull down the hood of a hooded sweatshirt because it was blocking her eyes – and immediately rescinded that request when she realized that the student was wearing the hood in place of her usual hajib.”
Maplewood Chief of Police James DeVaul said, in an Oct. 7 email, that his department “is in the very initial stages of conducting an investigation for possible criminality.” DeVaul has not said, as of press time, whether the investigation was started with an individual’s complaint or a SOMSD request.
BLOOMFIELD – The township is looking for a qualified engineering consultant now through 11 a.m. Oct. 22 so that he or she can conduct a detailed stormwater management study.
That study, explained Mayor Michael Venezia, would put the stormwater system through models of future storms and identify areas for improvement. The study will help the township weather future storms the likes of Sept. 1-2’s Tropical Storm Ida.
“Combating the effects of climate change and being ready for the next major storm are important priorities for the township,” said Venezia Oct. 1. “The study’s imperative so that we can take a proactive approach in mitigating damage from future storms.”
Submission packages, including selection criteria and requirements, may be picked up at the Municipal Clerk’s office, 1 Municipal Plaza, during business hours and on www.bloomfieldtwpnj.com.
MONTCLAIR – Township police officers, with the help of their Cedar Grove and West Cadlwell colleagues, among eight departments, found a pickup truck reported as stolen from Belleville Sept. 28 – and the Kearny driver who led them on a chase in seven towns.
An MPD patrol officer found a 2014 silver Dodge Ram pickup matching the stolen vehicle’s description, at Valley Road and Bellevue Avenue around 4:45 p.m. that Tuesday. The officer was also receiving a GPS tracking feed, courtesy of the Dodge’s Belleville owner.
The Montclair cruiser followed the pickup up Bellevue until it had entered Cedar Grove. The officer broke off the pursuit after describing it on an all-points bulletin.
A Cedar Grove officer noticed the Ram turning south onto Pompton Road/Route 23, from East Bradford Avenue, near the Verona border, at 4:54 p.m. The officer and several CGPD colleagues followed the truck through Verona streets onto westbound Bloomfield Avenue before losing track among Caldwell, Essex Fells and Roseland streets.
CGPD and WCPD officers found the pickup abandoned along West Caldwell’s Sunnie Terrace at 5:50 p.m. West Caldwell officers arrested a woman identified as its driver Vanessa N. Shaarawy, 36, of Kearny. Caldwell, Essex Fells, North Caldwell and Roseland police and an Essex County Sheriff’s Officer assisted.
Shaarawy was charged on several motor counts, including eluding and reckless driving. She was also charged on two counts of receiving stolen property – the Dodge Ram and jewelry reported as taken from a vehicle in Dunnellen. A count each of possessing cocaine and drug paraphernalia were added after both were found onboard.
Shaaraway was released once she posted bail and had satisfied an outstanding Essex County Sheriff’s Office. The Truck and jewelry were returned to their respective owners.
BELLEVILLE – The Belleville Water Department, going by its Sept. 15 water quality report, has a long way to go in replacing its Lead Service Lines.
The BWD, in its latest water quality report, was obligated by the NJDEP to say that it had not met its quota of LSL replacement since Dec. 31, 2019. That quota was calculated at 385 LSLs or seven percent of its network.
That quota was triggered when the DEP’s lead action level of 15 micrograms per liter was exceeded in 10 percent of Belleville’s water samples during its Jan. 1-June 30, 2019 and July 1-Dec. 31 sampling periods.
LSLs, which connect municipal mains to homes or other water customers, are considered the main culprits in lead exceedances. Lead from solder, joints and fittings and the actual older lines may build up in fittings.
There has been LSL replacement here last year (and in Hillside) by Newark and its contractors – but those are of the water infrastructure owned by the city, affecting 50 to 60 customers in the First Ward’s Silver Lake neighborhood.
Newark responded to its lead-in-water crisis by getting a $150 million loan from the Essex County Improvement Authority and awarding several emergency no-bid contracts around Sept. 1, 2019. The city, funded by a 30-year ECIA bond issue, is almost done with its supercharged LSL replacement program at over 21,000 now-copper lines.
It is not known whether the DEP allowed Belleville, who owns 95 percent of its water lines, to count those around 55 lines towards meeting its seven percent quota. Mayor Michael Melham, in 2019, said that the township would have to agree to a $30 million bond issue with the ECIA to conduct a similar program to Newark’s. The state meanwhile requires all water departments to search for LSLs in 2022 and to replace all LSLS found within 10 years.
NUTLEY – Some of “Nutley’s finest” fielded a bat-wielding man in a township park and a drunken man running through backyards in separate recent incidents.
NPD officers found “a tall, thin man with no shoes and a baseball bat,” yelling at people just outside of a Kingsland Park restroom, just as calling witnesses had described him, Sept. 25.
Lonnie Watlington, 39, of Brooklyn, was taken into custody after an electronic record check discovered an arrest warrant back there for second-degree assault. Watlington stayed at Newark’s Essex County Correctional Facility until he was extradited.
NYPD had charged Watlington in the July 9 slapping of a bicyclist at Battery Park City’s Liberty and West streets. The suspect’s addressed was traced to a Brooklyn men’s shelter. The biker’s head cut was treated at the scene.
NPD officers had responded to Cherry Lane residents’ calls of a man running through their backyards Sept. 19 – and found him inside a fenced yard.
The man, who said he had been drinking in Passaic, said he was trying to find a friend’s home. While he did not have an exact address, he said he “would recognize his friend’s backyard.” He had no idea how he got to Nutley.
The man agreed to be taken to RWJBarnabas Health’s Clara Maass Medical Center to be treated for his “extreme intoxication.” There was no other damage reported.
