TOWN WATCH by Walter Elliott
NEWARK – A man took a trip he didn’t want to take, to a local hospital, after an encounter with a local CoachUSA bus here Oct. 21.
Newark police detectives are figuring out how the pedestrian was struck by a CoachUSA No. 31 bus in the area of South Orange and Stuyvesant avenues around 2:30 p.m. that Thursday.
Witnesses said that he was dragged several feet along South Orange Avenue before the driver noticed and stopped. The victim was admitted to the hospital with critical injuries.
CoachUSA has long operated the No. 31 Newark-South Orange route. It uses NABI buses leased from New Jersey Transit.
IRVINGTON – The Essex County Prosecutor’s Office, on Oct. 20, identified the victim of an Oct. 17 rollover here as an East Orange man.
Irvington Fire Department members, who had arrived at Coit and Herpers streets 10:28 p.m. that Sunday, found Rahmeer F. Clary, 20, inside after that extinguished the car’s blaze. Clary was declared dead there 10:30 p.m.
Clary was a passenger in a Range Rover that Irvington police and the ECPO Homicide/Major Crimes Task Force said was stolen. The SUV was running at a high rate of speed when it struck a parked car, then a tree, and overturned.
IPD officers chased and apprehended the three other people who had bailed out of the Range Rover; they have been charged on related charges. One of them has only been identified as “the 17-year-old driver.”
Clary’s funeral was scheduled for 4 p.m. Oct. 27 at Newark’s Cotton Funeral Service.
EAST ORANGE – The long arm of local law, with the assistance of Florida sheriff’s officers, collared a man, wanted in a Sept.18 fatal shooting of a city man, there Oct. 19.
Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore “Ted” Stephens II announced that Polk County deputies had served an arrest warrant and took into custody James A. Lewis, 51, at a Winter Haven home earlier that Tuesday. That warrant helped deputies find evidence linking Lewis to the Sept. 18 shooting.
Lewis had been charged in the South Oraton Parkway and Chestnut Street murder of Troy S. Traynham. Traynham. 50. was found with multiple gunshot wounds 4:40 p.m. Sept. 18 and was rushed to University Hospital – where he died at 4:48 p.m.
Witnesses said that Traynham was unloading groceries from his girlfriend’s car when Lewis fired multiple rounds into him and carjacked the woman. The arrest warrant states that Lewis zip-tied his unwilling passenger and left her aboard after crashing the vehicle and fleeing.
Lewis awaits extradition to Newark. He is being held in the Polk Central County Jail, Bartow on carjacking, kidnapping and weapons charges.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said that Lewis was serving a 40-year prison sentence in a 1989 East Orange robbery and homicide but was released 10 years early due to COVID crowding concerns. “In less than two years of being released early,” said Judd, “he murdered again.”
ORANGE – The relatives, friends and colleagues of Orange Police Department Off. Dashon D. Williams have scheduled an Oct. 31 viewing and Nov. 1 funeral here at St. Matthew AME Church.
OPD, in its Oct. 18 Facebook posting, announced Off. Williams’ end of watch as Oct. 16. Williams, 42, had died that Saturday in University Hospital.
Williams, who was born June 25, 1979, received Badge No. 261 after joining the force Jan. 13, 2003. Colleagues remember the South Ward resident for his selflessness, humor and, “Holla at ya, boy” send-off.
Monday’s 11 a.m. funeral service follows Sunday’s 4-8 p.m. visitation. Arrangements have been made by the Garden Hill Funeral Service. Condolences for widow Lachina Williams and the family may be left at chinaworthern@gmail.com.
WEST ORANGE – A township family of nine, including its 91-year-old grandmother, have been looking for a roof over their heads since their being burned out of their home here on Oct. 3.
West Orange Fire Department personnel had responded to a call of a house fire in the Hutton Park section early that Sunday morning. They arrived to find the human occupants and most of their pets outside the 20 block of Fairview Place and flames coming out of its third floor.
Although firefighters brought the blaze under control, Blu Starbinski, the family’s housecat, had perished. The 1910 wood-frame house was condemned.
Granddaughter Nadia Starbinski put out an appeal for housing and related items Oct. 13. Nadia particularly wanted a stable place for her grandmother, who needs weekly nurse visits. “Grandmother Starbinski” had returned from hospitalization the week before the fire.
Nadia has started a GoFundMe.com page for clothing, toiletries and related items.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – The South Orange-Maplewood School District teacher in the eye of the alleged Oct.6 “hajib-removal” incident., with permission of her lawyer, published an open letter to the two-town community Oct. 16.
Second Grade Seth Boyden Demonstration School teacher Tamar Herman, in an 11-paragraph letter, opened with, “I’ve been helping kids for over 30 years. I help kids tie their shoes, put on their jackets, put on their band-aids. I help kids learn every day.”
Regarding what happened Oct. 6, Herman said she was standing near her students to give them instruction or review their work. She asked one of her students to raise the hood of her hooded sweatshirt.
“It was covering her eyes; with her mask on too, her whole face was covered,” said Herman. “I gently got her attention by brushing up the front of her hood. The moment I realized she was not wearing her usual hajib underneath, she kept the hood on.
“Then the learning went on – and that is what happened.”
Herman finished with a word to her students and the Seth Boyden community.
“I pray we can move forward as one community. Let us find a place where all of us can be our best selves and make a better, kinder world. I miss you so much.”
BLOOMFIELD / CLIFTON – Visitation, funeral and committal services were held in Clifton’s Marrocco Memorial Chapel and East Ridgelawn Cemetery Oct. 25-27 for Bloomfield Police Department Det. James Peri.
BPD announced Peri’s end of watch as Oct. 22. Peri, 52, had died after a long battle against COVID-19.
Peri, who was born in Paterson, was an 11-year BPD detective and member of PBA Local No. 32. The longtime Cliftonite came from the Passaic Police Department, which he had served for five years.
Wife Michele, children Quinci and Logan, sister Joanne Ballard and brothers Robert, Glen and Michael Peri and Joseph Leskow are among his survivors. Memorial donations may be made to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Association.
MONTCLAIR – USA Fencing has all but banned Montclair High School graduate Alen Hadzic from fencing competition while claims of his alleged sexual misconduct are fully investigated.
USA Fencing, on Oct. 21, said that Hadzic, 29, will only be entering meets “to the extent it is legally compelled to do so,” but has idled him, “for the foreseeable future.” The sanctioning body said it had to consider “many factors, including hos registration of individuals reflects on USA Fencing, its values and the interests of other athletes.”
Hadzic, now a West Orange resident, will not be going to an end-of-October meet at Colmar, France. Hadzic’s attorney, Michael Palma, of Morristown, called the decision, “troubling” in that USA Fencing so ruled “simply because the mob scares them into it.”
No charges have been filed against Hadzic. The US Center for SafeSport has been investigating claims of sexual assault from six women going back to 2017. USCSS was formed as an independent panel in the wake of the abuse of USA Gymnastics athletes by the US Olympic Team doctor.
The investigation has been conducted before Hadzic was named to the USCO Fencing Team and while he was present with the team while at the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo. He was allowed to be on the men’s epee team as an alternate but was lodged away from the Olympic Village.
The suspension is not his first. USA Fencing has learned that Columbia University kept Hazdic from competition in 2013 for a year while it investigated a sexual assault claim made by a woman teammate. Her lawyer told Columbia that he should be banned from USA Fencing.
BELLEVILLE – Stephens and Belleville Chief of Police Mark Minichini have recently said that they have a North Arlington man, accused of sexually assaulting a township teen, in custody since Oct. 8.
Bradley O’Dell, said Stephens and Minichini, was arrested “without incident” that Friday. He has been charged with luring a minor, endangering the welfare of a child and sexual assault.
O’Dell is accused of meeting the 13-year-old on an online dating app. He and the teen arranged meetings each in Belleville, Nutley and Lyndhurst last month – where he committed the assaults.
35 Years for Child Assault Convict
A Belleville man, convicted Nov. 19, 2019 of repeatedly sexually assaulting a nine-year-old girl here, was sentenced by State Superior Court-Newark Judge Martin Cronin Oct. 15 to a 35-year prison sentence.
The sentence on Jose Santana, 60, includes serving at least 85 percent of his term before being considered for parole. It is not known whether Santana’s detention time since his Sept. 26, 2018 arrest was factored in. His Jan. 12, 2020 sentencing was postponed and extended due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Santana was guilty of assaulting the girl while she visited him and his wife. The girl testified at his trial.
NUTLEY – Nutley Board of Education President Charles Kucinski may be getting a notice from the New Jersey Department of Education that an ethics complaint has been filed against him by now.
It will be no surprise to the longtime BOE member, since a group of parents – who call themselves Loud Mouths – told him and the board of their intent to file at their Oct. 18 meeting.
The group of residents and parents cited Kucinski’s handling of the Aug. 23 meeting’s public comments segment and the Oct. 20 reversal of the board’s Aug. 23 vote.
The complaint noted that Kucinski, as president of the meeting, did not enforce NBOE’s three-minute public speaking limit Aug. 23. Kucinski had previously strictly enforced the limit.
NBOE, acting on a majority of speakers’ sentiment, voted to have a letter drafted and sent to Gov. Phil Murphy opposing mask-wearing mandates. That vote was split, 6-2 and an abstention.
The board, on Sept. 20, voted 5-1 with three members absent, to rescind that letter. Kucinski, when asked, said the reversal was made after he and the panel “heard from the community, the majority supporting masks in schools.”
It is up to the NJDOE Ethics Commission whether to investigate the complaint.
