TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – New Jersey’s largest city, as of Feb. 15, has had seven men killed in as many weeks since Jan. 1 from street gun violence.
The ECPO Homicide and Major Crimes Task Force have been looking for Keni Johnson’s killer since his being declared dead alongside the North Munn Avenue front of the Bradley Court apartments 9:13 a.m. Feb. 11. Tenants told a reporter that they had heard two men arguing in a hallway before the gunshots. “Keni Ali,” 45, was described as a self-employed father of a toddler.
The county task force is investigating the death of Rasheed Lee, who died in University Hospital from gunshot wounds 5:40 p.m. Dec. 3. Lee, 35, was found shot at 161 Avon Ave., by the Pilgrim Village Housing Complex, at 5 p.m. Feb. 2. He was buried at East Hanover’s Restland Park, after funeral prayer here at the Islamic Burial Services, Feb. 9.
Al-Supreme Mathematics Davis, 30, was killed and three other males wounded by at least 2 rounds of gunshots by 1079 Broad St., 7:45 p.m. Jan. 26. The field investigation closed part of Broad Street for most of the evening.
Davis, who was born here Oct. 31, 1992, had attended Miller Street Elementary and East Side High schools. The adoring father of three was also survived by mother Tracy Archie and sisters Shakorah, Madison, Dalyia, Nakiesha, Latisha, Alishia, Jasmine, Nikkirah, Shantay, Shada, Leashia and Shamyah.
Boubacar Doukoure, 29, was declared dead on the parking lot of 131-41 Clinton Ave. 6:02 p.m. Jan. 24. Responding Newark police officers, acting on a gunfire call, found him on the Family Dollar-anchored shopping plaza at 5:29 p.m.
IRVINGTON – Several families were routed and early morning riders on two New Jersey Transit bus routes were detoured while all Irvington Fire Department hands quelled an apartment fire near the central business district here Feb. 14.
The IFD incident commander and Raymond Martinez said that the first fire alarm from 649 Grove St./ 1 Breckenridge Terr. at 12:10 a.m. Tuesday. Martinez told News12 New Jersey that he and his family fled when they saw smoke coming into their top floor apartment.
The crew of IFD Station 4, two doors south at 663 Grove, were promptly at the scene. The crews of Truck 42 and Engine 44 were joined by their Fire Headquarters peers with the second and third alarms.
Firefighters and responding Irvington police department officers closed Grove Street between 16th and 18th avenues. Buses on NJTransit’s Nos. 1 and 90 bus routes were among the detoured traffic into the morning rush hour.
Although everybody in the three-story building’s five apartments were evacuated, 12 mph wind gusts hampered control. Several units stayed on scene to put out any flares or hotspots into 7 a.m.
Martinez said his uncle owned the corner Jesenia Supermarket. The uncle had opened the front door roll gate and was met by flames. The market and the building suffered serious damage, including a partial roof collapse.
The local American Red Cross chapter found the displaced tenants temporary housing.
EAST ORANGE / BLOOMFIELD – A city man’s 37 month quest for justice has ended with an overall $190,000 settlement from East Orange and Bloomfield over “an unfair photo array.”
The City of East Orange, according to records made public Jan. 24, paid one of its residents, Khari Gardner, $114,000 around Oct. 15. The Township of Bloomfield paid $76,000 for its part.
Gardner, in his Sept. 13, 2018 lawsuit, said he had voluntarily entered the East Orange Police Headquarters Sept. 13, 2016 to answer questions. He left the headquarters in handcuffs to spend two months in Newark’s Essex County Correctional Facility on $575,000 bail.
EOPD’s charges against Gardner – multiple counts of armed robbery, conspiracy and weapons charges – were dismissed at the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office request Sept. 22, 2017.
It turned out that the three East Orange armed robbery victims said they could not match the suspect’s identity with the photo of Gardner they were given. The photo used, was taken when Gardner “was a juvenile” and not when he was 27 at the time.
Bloomfield police, at East Orange’s request, used that photo among an array of six presented to two robbery victims in their township investigation. They also told the Bloomfield victims that EOPD affidavits had Gardner as their suspect and that one of the East Orange victims had “positively identified” him.
Neither department, said Gardner, had contacted his work supervisors and girlfriend who supported his alibi that he was not at any of the five robberies.
ORANGE – The late Our Lady of the Valley Fr. John Baron, 75, who died in Avalon Dec. 28, may have left a local mystery that perhaps his contemporary parishioners can dispel.
One of Fr. Baron’s mourners left a guest book message calling him “an amazingly compassionate man and a wonderful priest” who “saw Our Lady of the Valley through one of her toughest times.”
The Archdiocese of Newark had closed Our Lady of the Valley High School due to declining enrollment June 30, 1981. Fr. Baron, who was ordained May 26, 1973, had come to Our Lady of the Valley from his first assignment – as Parochial Vicar of Verona’s Our Lady of the Lake. He went on to Plainfield’s St. Bernard’s Parish and seven other vocational assignments.
John B. Baron’s obituary said he was born in Orange and had resided in Maplewood, Millburn’s Short Hills and Avalon. He had graduated from Seton Hall Prep when it was still on SHU property. Baron earned a bachelor’s degree from SHU, master’s degrees from Immaculate Conception Seminary and Fordham University and a doctorate from Drew University.
Dr. Baron’s other assignments included Newman Catholic Center Campus Minister at Montclair State College and FDU-Teaneck, Newman Campus Center Director in Newark and as an Essex Vicariate Dean.
“Father Jack” was interred in St. Rose of Lima-Short Hills Cemetery, after a Funeral Mass there, Jan. 6. Brother Albert W. Baron and sister Patricia A. Nebel are among his survivors.
WEST ORANGE – “You can’t be too careful” may sum up municipal and county authorities’ response to a Jan. 30 interpreted bomb threat to West Orange Public Schools infrastructure.
The Essex County Sheriff’s Office K-9 and bomb squad units went to the district’s school bus yard on Standish Avenue that midday Monday. They particularly came to the former Edison Labs parking lot to check out buses used by the Roosevelt Middle School. WOPD officers were meanwhile sent to the nearby middle school.
The sniffing-out began when RMS school counselors were made aware of an Instagram chat room involving several of its students.
An unidentified chatter asked if any students “will be taking the late bus.” That person added that “they were going to bomb the bus.”
The counselors promptly informed RMS’s main office, the WOPS superintendent’s office and the WOPD.
Although the sheriff’s officers found no credible threat, RMS afterschool activities that day were cancelled. Other school activities went on as normal. WOPD detectives did stay on the school campus to complete their investigation.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – Two students were checked for injuries and a third taken to Maplewood Police Headquarter as a result of fighting after the Feb. 7 Columbia-Irvington boys basketball game. The altercations brought backup from three police departments and the Essex County Sheriff’s Office.
The Irvington Blue Knights had just defeated the hosting Columbia Cougars, 47-44 when the MPD officer supervising the event noticed “several squabbles and fights” breaking out among the departing crowd of 100 at 8:30 p.m. that Tuesday.
The officer immediately radioed headquarters for more colleagues. Additional MPD officers plus those from South Orange and Millburn and nearby sheriff’s officers promptly responded to the gym parking lot.
MPD put out a message asking people to avoid the Valley Street and Parker Road area at 8:56 p.m. Maplewood Traffic/Community Service Bureau Detective Sgt. Scott Reeves said that the crowd “had departed and the visiting team was able to safely leave the area.”
The two injured students were treated by arriving EMS and under their parents’ supervision. MPD took the third youth to headquarters, where no charges were filed but parents notified for pickup.
Irvington’s Feb. 7 victory countered a Jan. 10 72-60 loss to CHS on their floor. The Blue Knights led three of Feb. 7s four quarters with the Cougars responding 14-3 in the third quarter. Both squads, as of Feb. 12, sport identical 16-7 and 12-4 SEC win-loss records.
MONTCLAIR – There are maybe up to 100 reasons why Glen Willow Lofts’ owners have hardened their construction site here at 172 Glenridge Ave. since Feb. 4.
Montclair police patrol officers, who were responding to a neighbor’s noise complaint, arrived at the site that Saturday – just when “up to 100 juveniles” were leaving through the main entrance.
The officers, once the youths had dispersed, searched the five-story building.
They found how they gained entry; someone had smashed a sliding glass door with a rock. They also found two of the under-construction apartments having been “occupied,” as evidenced by left-behind “multiple bottles and trash.”
The officers contacted Glen Willow management and the Montclair Fire Department and waited until they had arrived to secure the property.
Glen Willow Lofts is being built on a lot that was once used for local parking. They have also built and manage a similar building at 131 Glenridge Ave.
GLEN RIDGE – The Glen Ridge Public Library Board of Trustees, before an overflow audience of 600 here Feb. 9, unanimously turned down two residents and “Citizens Defending Education” bids to have six book titles removed from its shelves.
By “overflow,” an audience of public officials, media and other interested people filled the Ridgewood Avenue Upper Elementary School Auditorium before the trustees’ 7:30 p.m. start. Those who could not get seats by 7 p.m. stood in the hallway and out onto the plaza.
Some of the audience was from “Glen Ridge United Against Book Bans.” The single-purpose group, some of whom were among those of the 40 who spoke in public comment segment, opposed CDE and what was originally eight residents’ autumn request to “reconsider” shelving the six books.
The trustees had twice moved their otherwise regular Monday meeting, from the library itself to the Municipal Building Council Chamber and finally to Ridgewood UES’s auditorium. The gathering over a controversial issue, said one observer, was the largest in the borough in 30 years.
The trustees turned down CDE and the two residents’ Jan. 15 filing to appeal the board’s original Nov. 7 decision to retain the book. Those six titles, they and Library Director Tina Marie Doody maintain, had met its Library Materials Selection Policy. The books in question dealt with sexuality and LGBTQ+ issues for young adults and their parents.
GRPL, said the trustees, had received 240 letters from individuals and community groups opposing what they saw was a book ban attempt. They were also presented with a 2,900 signature petition from Glen Ridge United to keep the books in circulation.
Forty of the 79 who signed up for public speaking included Assemblywoman Britnee Timberlake (D-East Orange) and three members of Plainfield author George Johnson, whose “All Boys Aren’t Blue” autobiography was among the six questioned. Statements from Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo (D-Roseland0 and the Bloomfield and Montclair township councils were also read into the record.
Only one of the speakers, not of the initial “reconsidering 8,” remotely defended the questioning. None of the reconsidering residents, nor any CDE representatives, signed up to speak.
BELLEVILLE – The Belleville Historical Society, with the blessing of Iglesia Pentecostal la Senda Antigua, launched a GoFundMe.com fundraising campaign Feb. 13 to finish the former Reformed Church of Belleville’s steeple repairs.
BHS President Michael Perrone said that they and the church have set a $25,000 goal to install historically correct shingles on the 166-year-old steeple and restore the copper cross that was all but blown down by Superstorm Sandy in 2010. The former Dutch Reformed Church of Second River and its Colonial era burial ground are on the National Register of Historical Places.
Their goal may well be “$25,000 or Bust.” Perrone said that township code enforcers, acting on an anonymous “loose shingle” call, had halted La Senda Antigua’s worship services and Bible studies for 10 days last year.
It was not the first time the township had tried to “expedite” 171 Main St.’s repairs.
The then-Belleville tax collector put a property lien on the church in 2014 when its leadership got behind on repaying $40,000 for Sandy repairs. The township put out the money in a vain hope that they would get a FEMA grant.
Pastors Miguel and Lillian Ortiz said that all Sandy repairs have been done except on the steeple. The Bloomfield couple, on one hand, bought 171 Main in 2010 from the Reformed Church of America – who ended 309 years of worship by closing the church on its dwindling congregation in 2006.
La Senda Antigua, however, is an independent church – without a synod or diocese to draw from. The pastors and their parishioners, except for the likes of Rutgers University and a nearby church, have had to fund their own repairs.
Several congregants, for example, took out a $60,000 loan to erect scaffolding around the tower. They now need to obtain and install slate shingles or risk a more permanent Township of Belleville shutdown. The descendants of Col. Henry Rutgers, the first Chinese immigrants of the East Coast and soldiers from the Revolutionary and Civil wars and the War of 1812 are among the 189 remains buried here.
NUTLEY – When Anthony M. Pietoso, 77, had died in his sleep here Jan. 28, his Nutley Maroon Raider persona also ran into the sunset.
Pietoso, in his obituary, was listed as “an amazing high school and college football and track star, still holding the state record for the 100-yard dash.”
“Tony,” NHS Class of 1963, was on football head coach Thomas Taylor and track and field coach Daniel F. Broffman’s teams.
Pietoso, wearing No. 43, was part of the Maroon Raiders’ 1962 5-2-2 win, loss and tie record. He was also part of Taylor’s 1959-62 25-11 win-loss record. Pietoso, under his 1963 “Exit” yearbook picture, said he had looked up to Broffman.
Older brother Louis, in 1956, also took to the football gridiron. Son Michael, in 1995, was an NHS track member hailed by the board of education.
It is not clear whether Pietoso set the 100 yd. dash record in New Jersey, Texas or Connecticut. He studied physical education while at Ranger (Texas) College before transferring in 1965 to Central Connecticut State College.
Anthony went on to a life of restaurant management, most notably as part-owner of Clifton’s Giants Lounge in the 1980s, and in sales management. His beloved wife Patricia died in 2014. His last rites were held here at the S.W. Brown & Son Funeral Home Feb. 13.
