TOMS RIVER — A graduation party on Friday night devolved into a brawl and left one Monmouth County man dead, police said.
The death is considered suspicious, said police Chief Michael J. Mastronardy. Crime scene investigators were at a house here late Saturday afternoon.
Milton Love, a 33-year-old man from Howell, and his wife attended a graduation party that started about 9 p.m. Friday night at a Romana Lane home, police said. Love's wife was not identified.
At about 1 a.m. Saturday, police believe, there was a fight outside the West Dover section home involving four men and two women. During the course of the fight, Love apparently was struck once in the head, fell backward and hit his head on the ground, Mastronardy said in a prepared statement. The six guests involved in the fight fled the scene before police arrived, Mastronardy said.
Love was taken to Community Medical Center in Toms River, where he later was pronounced dead, Mastronardy said.
A group of American Baptists have become embroiled in the center of a growing fear in Haiti after the devestating earthquake - human trafficking.
Ten men and women were detained in Malpasse while allegedly attempting to cross the border into the Dominican Republic with 33 children in tow without proper paperwork, according to officials.
"No children can leave Haiti without proper authorization, and these people did not have that authorization," Haiti's social affairs minister, Yves Cristalin, told Reuters.
The church group, most of whom are from Idaho, were arrested Friday night. They claim to have been taking the children - ranging in age from two months to 12 years old - to an orphanage in the neighboring nation.
"In this chaos the government is in right now, we were just trying to do the right thing," said Laura Silsby, a spokesperson for group, to the Associated Press.
The Baptists were part of the "Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission," Silsby said. It's goal is to save abandoned children and bring them to a 45-room hotel at Cabarete, a beach resort in the Dominican Republic, which the group claims to be converting into an orphanage.
"We had permission from the Dominican Republic government to bring the children to an orphanage that we have there," she told Reuters.
"They accuse us of children trafficking," Sillsby said. "This is something I would never do. We were not trying to do something wrong."
Haitian officials fear child trafficking could be underway following the devastating earthquake.
Speaking to CNN last week, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said he has received reports of kids being sold, and he believed human organs were also being taken from victims of the quake for profit.
But aid group UNICEF was quick to refute the claims, saying child trafficking is a major concern in the impoverished nation, but there is no hard evidence to back up the government official's claims.
The officer, who has not been identified for "security reasons," suffered gunshot wounds to his upper body was airlifted to University Hospital in Newark where he is listed in critical but stable condition.
Police are now searching for a black Dodge Magnum with two men inside. The description was given to them by the injured officer, who was found lying in the road, after neighbors called police to report shots being fired.
The shooting occurred on Fairfield Road and the officer returned fire after being shot at. It is not known if he hit either of the suspects in the vehicle.
Gutkin said Fairfield has not had an officer shot in the 23 years he’s been on the force. “It’s hitting us all pretty hard right now,” he said.
An employee of a nearby steakhouse, who declined to give his name, said he saw police cars chasing a black Dodge.
Police are offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the apprehension and arrest of the suspects involved in the shooting.
Contact the Fairfield police at 973-227-1400.
"Please take care of the children."
Those were the tearful last words Luisa Ordoñez told husband Miguel Chan yesterday, seconds before she lost consciousness from the heavy smoke filling their Brooklyn apartment.
"She said, 'I can't. I can't anymore,' and she said, 'Please take care of the children.' Then she fainted," a devastated Chan, 40, told The Post last night.
Clutching his wife's hand as she slipped away, he tried to give her a last bit of comfort.
"Don't lose your faith in God," he recalled telling his bride of four years.
Just moments earlier, Ordoñez had been awakened by the smell of smoke in their Bensonhurst home. The couple sprang into action to save their 2-year-old son and 2-month-old daughter.
"I tried to open the door, but it was too hot," Chan said. "So I picked up a chair and broke a window. I was pleading for help for my kids. A guy on the street told me to throw my children and that he would help me."
Ordoñez strapped Maria Maura into her car seat and Chan tossed her from the third-floor window to neighbor Jorge Morales.
But the little girl slipped through Morales' hands and hit the pavement. She was in critical condition with a fractured skull last night at Schneider Children's Hospital in New Hyde Park, LI, but was expected to live.
Chan, who works as a plumber and came to the United States 10 years ago, then lowered Josias down to neighbors who had managed to escape the blaze.
"Thank God I was able to save my kids," he said. "After they were safe, I attempted to save my wife, but the fire was too much."
He added that couldn't bring himself to let go of his wife's hand, pulling her to the window with his remaining strength.
But it was too late.
"I tried to save her," he said, "but I couldn't."
Additional reporting by Tim Perone
New York's poverty industry is launching a renewed attack on welfare reform -- and the Obama administration is taking the wrong side.
Mayor Bloomberg has always resisted the advocates' pressure to alter the city's work and responsibility requirements. But the recession has given the advocates a new pretext for making it easier to climb on the dole.
Should the poverty promoters succeed, New York would quickly reclaim its status as America's dependency capital, hurting taxpayers and the poor alike.
Several reform-rollback bills are gathering steam in Albany:
* A measure sponsored by state Sen. Daniel Squadron (D-Brooklyn) would forbid the city from asking that shelter mothers with income help defray their housing costs.
State law now requires putatively homeless single mothers with an income to contribute a small sum toward the costs of their taxpayer-funded apartments. When the city tried to enforce the rule last spring, the homeless advocates went ballistic and the administration backed off. The city would like to start enforcing the rule again.
Such a co-payment requirement is both fair and good policy. A single mother with two children and a monthly income of $1,000 could be asked to pay around $160 a month for her private apartment. Other low-income New Yorkers outside the shelter system pay far more of their income towards rent -- and the absence of any rent requirement creates a powerful incentive to enter and stay in the shelter system.
It also undermines the contract between taxpayers and welfare recipients that was at the heart of welfare reform: Taxpayers will assist the poor, so long as the poor try to help themselves. Making monthly rent payments, even if de minimis, develops the discipline necessary to become financially self-supporting.
The result of this free pass to a private apartment is a nearly half-a-billion dollar annual bill to house single mothers claiming homelessness.
* Another bill would forbid the city from conducting an independent medical evaluation of a recipient's claim that she's incapable of working. This is absurd: Forcing the city to accept a recipient's claim of disability is an open invitation to fraud. Many doctors who provide welfare applicants with a "can't-work" diagnosis simply rubber-stamp the recipient's request; they have no incentive to push a client toward work.
* A third proposal would allow enrollment in a four-year college to count for welfare's work requirements. This change in the law ignores decades of pre- and post-welfare-reform experience, which shows that the best way for an unskilled worker to enter the workforce is to actually start working -- not to spend years in often fruitless "education and training" programs.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration has been conducting its own campaign for expanded eligibility. (Not a complete surprise, since some of the nation's top advocates of old-style welfare now hold key federal positions.)
* For now, the city has fended off Washington's push to eliminate its requirement that food-stamp recipients establish their identity through finger-imaging -- but the pressure to discard that key anti-fraud measure continues.
* An early draft of the stimulus bill tried to forbid the city from asking able-bodied, childless food-stamp recipients to spend a few hours a week working or looking for work.
* When states across the country were slow to increase their welfare caseloads and spending with federal stimulus dollars, the administration loosened the rules in the final bill for doling out added welfare money.
This double-sided attack on welfare reform lacks all empirical basis. Since 1995, the city's welfare rolls have dropped nearly 70 percent, from 1.1 million to 350,000. Yet the child-poverty rate here has fallen 34 percent over that same period (vs. a 5 percent drop nationwide). In 2008, New York City had the lowest child-poverty rate -- 26.5 percent -- and the lowest total poverty rate -- 18.2 percent -- of the country's eight largest cities.
Work, even at minimum wage, remains the best route out of poverty. In New York City, a single mother of two with an $8.25 an hour job winds up with a $63,000 income, when cash supports for work and medical and housing benefits are included. On welfare alone, that same mother pulls in $43,000 a year -- a whopping amount for non-work, to be sure, but still less than work provides.
The recession is no excuse for changing the "responsibility philosophy" that has lowered poverty in New York City. The middle-class employment situation has worsened, but entry-level work remains available. The city placed 75,000 welfare recipients in jobs last year; on average, about 70 percent of people who left welfare for work are still off the rolls 12 months later.
And even if the entry-level job market significantly tightens, the city's workfare program acts as a backstop for people who can't find a private-sector job.
Powerful political forces are trying to make dependency acceptable again. Mayor Bloomberg is right to resist them.
Heather Mac Donald is a contributing editor at City Journal. Adapted from the magazine's Web site, city-journal.org
People respond to tragedy; it is human nature to help. Volunteers, money and resources are pouring into Haiti from North Jersey and elsewhere to provide relief to victims of the largest earthquake in the island’s history.
But there is also a quiet, growing tragedy here at home as more and more people struggle to put food on the table.
Ask anyone who works at any of the area food banks and they will tell you that demand in New Jersey is on the rise, even in traditionally well-to-do Bergen and Passaic communities.
“People that never, ever thought that they would need help are coming to us,” says Patricia Espy, executive director of the Center for Food Action, headquartered in Englewood and with outreach sites in Carlstadt, Elmwood Park, Fairview, Hackensack, Mahwah, Palisades Park and Ringwood.
Like many charitable organizations, food banks face the challenge of meeting yearlong demand with the donations that come primarily during the “giving season” between Thanksgiving and the December holidays.
“Once you get through the holidays, food donations drop off,” says Tim Vogel, the director of food distribution for the Community FoodBank of New Jersey. The Community FoodBank fills the role of supplier for many food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters throughout the state. It uses bulk purchasing power to stretch donation dollars and is also a coordinating partner for many of the corporate food drives statewide.
Educating the public that demand is not seasonal is key to keeping the shelves at food banks stocked for those in need. With that in mind, we present this look at the food pantry network:
Donations
Cash is always welcome, and bags of food are good, too, but an alternative that offers food banks flexibility is supermarket gift cards, because they can be given to those in need to allow them to buy the foods they prefer.
The gift of food
To those who qualify, the Center for Food Action gives a week’s worth of food per person per household (a family of four gets seven days of food for four people), and they can use the food bank nine times and for Thanksgiving. Food packages are customized to meet health problems such as diabetes and high blood pressure as well as for vegetarian and kosher diets.
What they get
A family of four gets approximately $180 worth of food, and while the contents can vary with supply, all packages are nutritionally balanced. A typical package contains two boxes of cold cereal, 16 envelopes of hot cereal, four cans of evaporated milk, one jar of peanut butter, one jar of jelly, eight cans of soup, two cans or boxes of potatoes, six cans of vegetables, two cans of baked beans, three cans of beans, one box of pancake mix and one bottle of syrup, one can of coffee and/or tea, three boxes of macaroni and cheese, one bag of dried beans, five boxes of dry pasta, two jars of tomato sauce, one can of tomatoes, four cans of tuna, three cans of fruit, two boxes of Jello or pudding, a family-size bag of sugar, assorted snacks, a loaf of bread, house-cleaning supplies, a bar of soap, a tube of toothpaste, fresh eggs and cheese.
Food distributions
In Bergen and Passaic counties, by the Center for Food Action:
2008: $2.7 million (48,000 packages)
2009: $3 million (50,000 packages)
Statewide, by the Community FoodBank:
2008: 23 million pounds
2009:33 million pounds
Urgently needed
Food banks never thought they would have to ask, but because of increased demand, hearty soups are urgently needed.
Also needed
If you need help or want to give
North Jersey food pantries affiliated with the New Jersey Anti-Hunger Coalition:
Buddies of New Jersey Inc.
149 Hudson St., Hackensack
201-489-2900
Center for Food Action
story continued here
Photo/New York City Rescue MissionHOPE is DHS’ annual, one-night survey of individuals living on city streets.
The 2009 HOPE found that unsheltered homelessness had decreased 47 percent since 2005 and 30 percent since 2008. Although critics such as Coalition for the Homeless, a Manhattan based non-profit group, have questioned HOPE methodology, the estimate is a jewel in DHS’ crown.
Thousands of volunteers help perform HOPE; DHS deployed more than 3,000 volunteers to streets, parks and subways on January 25. Unsheltered homelessness has dropped 72 percent in the Bronx since 2005, a decease Hess called “spectacular.” Last year, the HOPE found 2,238 homeless in the city and 164 in the Bronx. Most were found in Manhattan and on the subway system.
“We have made tremendous progress in the Bronx,” Hess said. “We hope that the 2010 HOPE will show that we’ve maintained that progress or done even better.”
Hess attributed DHS’ success with street homelessness to an emphasis on homeless outreach. In the Bronx, the Bronx Works (formerly Citizens Advice Bureau) mobile Homeless Outreach Team helps homeless individuals obtain housing, benefits, drug and alcohol treatment, healthcare and counseling.
The team pays visits to homeless on the street, under bridges and in abandoned buildings. Ideally, it persuades the homeless to use The Living Room, a 24-hour drop-in center on Garrison Avenue in Hunts Point.
From The Living Room, they enter Safe Haven transitional housing and apply for permanent housing, The Living Room director Noel Concepcion said. Concepcion also thinks the HOPE will produce another street homeless decrease in the Bronx.
“On the street, I think you see [the decrease] from five or ten years ago,” he said.
Although the economic recession has pushed many more Bronx families into homeless shelters, it has had less effect on street homelessness. Most street homeless individuals are single adults. Many suffer from mental health and/or substance abuse issues.
HOPE volunteers canvassed areas where street homeless individuals are known to stay and a random sample of areas where street homeless individuals aren’t often found. Decoys – trained individuals posed as homeless individuals – were planted to gauge the accuracy of the estimate. The Police Department was on hand to assist volunteers throughout the HOPE.
Hess expects numbers of homeless families from the Bronx to increase for another six months to a year and expects the economic recession to knock some single adults onto the street soon.
Some Bronx leaders have argued that the borough shoulders more homeless shelters than it should, more than Brooklyn, Queens, State Island and Manhattan. But Bronx shelters boast fewer beds than there are homeless individuals from the borough, Hess said.
Reach reporter Daniel Beekman at 718 742-3383 or dbeekman@cnglocal.com
NEW YORK — A Transportation Security Administration agent at LaGuardia Airport has been reassigned after a traveler photographed her napping while in uniform.
Bucky Turco of Brooklyn took the photograph Sunday and posted it online. His link was sent to TSA officials.
The unidentified agent has been reassigned to desk duty pending the investigation's outcome.
She might have been on a break. TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis said agents have very demanding jobs. But Davis said they should use break rooms instead of resting in public areas.
Another TSA worker was placed on administrative leave for allegedly leaving his post at Newark Liberty International Airport. A man breached security to kiss his girlfriend; the scare closed a terminal for six hours.
NEW YORK — A Transportation Security Administration agent at LaGuardia Airport has been reassigned after a traveler photographed her napping while in uniform.
Bucky Turco of Brooklyn took the photograph Sunday and posted it online. His link was sent to TSA officials.
The unidentified agent has been reassigned to desk duty pending the investigation's outcome.
She might have been on a break. TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis said agents have very demanding jobs. But Davis said they should use break rooms instead of resting in public areas.
Another TSA worker was placed on administrative leave for allegedly leaving his post at Newark Liberty International Airport. A man breached security to kiss his girlfriend; the scare closed a terminal for six hours.
A Bronx man with the same name as a Pennsylvania fugitive has been mistakenly nabbed three times in five years by New York cops.
Each time, Michael Terry, 37, has spent days in jail, even though authorities have a picture of the actual Lebanon County, Pa., suspect wanted for skipping an October 2003 court date on a gun charge.
New York's Terry was first arrested on the warrant in June 2005, and was jailed 28 days before the Bronx DA came up with the fugitive's photo.
Terry sued the city and the NYPD in 2005, getting a $120,000 settlement.
But a 2008 arrest on the warrant put Terry in jail for a week..
He filed a second lawsuit that's still pending.
In September, police stopped Terry and a friend, he said.
He was shocked when he was strip-searched and jailed for five days.
SECAUCUS – Members of a gay rights advocacy group on Tuesday night protested the Town Council giving any consideration to reinstating three volunteer firefighters who resigned two years ago after a gay couple won a multimillion-dollar harassment lawsuit against the town.
Mayor Michael Gonnelli told the standing-room only crowd, which included members of Garden State Equality as well as firefighter supporters, that the three men, Charles Snyder Sr., Charles Snyder Jr. and Charles Mutschler, told him Monday they did not wish to be reinstated.
At a rally held outside town hall an hour before the public meeting, where signs such as “Secaucus, Don’t Reinstate Hate” were displayed, Garden State Equality chairman Steven Goldstein said he learned in a meeting with the mayor Tuesday that the reinstatement wouldn’t happen.
But he said he was upset to later find out that the mayor and council were considering a resolution at the meeting to promote Charles Snyder Sr. to superintendent of the Department of Public Works. The protest then also focused on Snyder’s promotion.
“In the real world when an employee makes death threats, that employee doesn’t get a promotion. That employee is banned from the workforce of the company forever,” Goldstein said.
Goldstein said the three men, who resigned while facing town administrative charges in 2008, had also signed an agreement with the town that said they would not seek to rejoin the department.
Gonnelli, a longtime firefighter, said Snyder’s personnel record only contained commendations and he was qualified for the position.
“This was an issue about a gentleman who deserves a promotion who got it,” he said.
The mayor and council voted 6-to-1 in favor of the resolution to make Snyder superintendent.
Peter de Vries and Timothy Carter, a gay couple who lived on Schopman Drive next to the firehouse, claimed in their suit that the firemen harassed them starting in 2001. By 2004, the incidents became more frequent.
In one incident on April 24, 2004, the couple said firefighters returned from a banquet, pounded on the walls of the couple’s home and yelled death threats when Carter asked to quiet down, according to the lawsuit.
In June, 2006, a jury found in the couple’s favor, ordering the town to pay $2.8 million in damages to the men, in addition to $2 million in legal fees.
The three former firefighters were identified during the civil trial as being active in the harassment.
SECAUCUS – Members of a gay rights advocacy group on Tuesday night protested the Town Council giving any consideration to reinstating three volunteer firefighters who resigned two years ago after a gay couple won a multimillion-dollar harassment lawsuit against the town.
Mayor Michael Gonnelli told the standing-room only crowd, which included members of Garden State Equality as well as firefighter supporters, that the three men, Charles Snyder Sr., Charles Snyder Jr. and Charles Mutschler, told him Monday they did not wish to be reinstated.
At a rally held outside town hall an hour before the public meeting, where signs such as “Secaucus, Don’t Reinstate Hate” were displayed, Garden State Equality chairman Steven Goldstein said he learned in a meeting with the mayor Tuesday that the reinstatement wouldn’t happen.
But he said he was upset to later find out that the mayor and council were considering a resolution at the meeting to promote Charles Snyder Sr. to superintendent of the Department of Public Works. The protest then also focused on Snyder’s promotion.
“In the real world when an employee makes death threats, that employee doesn’t get a promotion. That employee is banned from the workforce of the company forever,” Goldstein said.
Goldstein said the three men, who resigned while facing town administrative charges in 2008, had also signed an agreement with the town that said they would not seek to rejoin the department.
Gonnelli, a longtime firefighter, said Snyder’s personnel record only contained commendations and he was qualified for the position.
“This was an issue about a gentleman who deserves a promotion who got it,” he said.
The mayor and council voted 6-to-1 in favor of the resolution to make Snyder superintendent.
Peter de Vries and Timothy Carter, a gay couple who lived on Schopman Drive next to the firehouse, claimed in their suit that the firemen harassed them starting in 2001. By 2004, the incidents became more frequent.
In one incident on April 24, 2004, the couple said firefighters returned from a banquet, pounded on the walls of the couple’s home and yelled death threats when Carter asked to quiet down, according to the lawsuit.
In June, 2006, a jury found in the couple’s favor, ordering the town to pay $2.8 million in damages to the men, in addition to $2 million in legal fees.
The three former firefighters were identified during the civil trial as being active in the harassment.
"My mom! She's dead, I think! I don't know! Please! Help me! Help me!"
Jurors in the "Realtor to the Stars" murder trial heard the wrenching 911 tape of victim Linda Stein's daughter, Mandy, yesterday.
Mandy Stein, who returns to the stand today, is the first witness to testify against her mother's accused bludgeoner -- Stein's young, pretty and -- prosecutors say -- larcenous, personal assistant Natavia Lowery.
Mandy sat dressed in black and sobbing silently as the tape of her voice was played in Manhattan Supreme Court.
"My mom!" she shrieks on the tape, her voice dissolving into the most pitiable and incoherent of whimpers. "My mom!"
It was the evening of Oct. 30, 2007, and Mandy, 35, a documentary filmmaker from Los Angeles, had just walked into Stein's penthouse apartment at Fifth Avenue and 78th Street.
Stein, 62, was a high-powered residential real-estate agent -- and former manager of punk rock pioneers the Ramones -- who's clientele included A-listers Madonna, Calvin Klein and Angelina Jolie. Another client, Elton John, was a close family friend for decades. Chosen as Mandy's godfather, John sang at a benefit for Stein's breast cancer foundation.
Lowery, 28, a Hunter College business major, had worked for Stein only three months -- and had robbed her of $30,000, sparking the fatal argument, prosecutors say. At first, she didn't recognize the body on the living room floor, the daughter told jurors. The torso and head were covered by a blue velour hoodie. The legs were awkwardly twisted. Below the head lay a pool of black and red blood.
When she realized it was her mother, she dove down, shook the body and found it was hard and cold. Calling 911, she was almost too distraught to talk.
"Ma'am! Ma'am! Speak to me!" the 911 operator, a woman, urged. "You found your mother on the floor?"
"Send somebody!" Mandy is heard whimpering. "Please. Please. Please."
Lead prosecutor Joan Illuzzi-Orbon links Lowery to the brutal murder by her detailed confession, her access to the apartment and the $30,000 Lowery allegedly lifted from Stein's accounts -- thefts that continued even after the murder.
Defense lawyers for the first time publicly yesterday admitted Lowery was stealing from her boss. But they continued to call her confession a lie coerced by cops during a 10-hour interrogation.
They are casting a wide net for alternate murderers, telling jurors Stein had many enemies, that Mandy and sister Samantha were in debt and that roofers had access to Stein's penthouse apartment.
The trial is slated to last a month. Lowery faces up to life in prison if convicted.
SANTA MONICA, Calif. — MTV's "Jersey Shore" will be back for a second season.
The network's president of programming Tony DiSanto said Friday that 12 new episodes will air this summer.
According to the network, Pauly D, Mike, Snooki, Jenni, Sammi, Ronnie and Vinny escape the cold northeast and find themselves in a new destination.
The show about tanned twenty-somethings hasn't been without controversy.
In December, the New Jersey Italian American Legislative Caucus called for MTV to cancel the show, saying it promotes derogatory ethnic stereotypes and is "wildly offensive."
MTV isn't revealing how much the cast members are being paid to do the show.
SANTA MONICA, Calif. — MTV's "Jersey Shore" will be back for a second season.
The network's president of programming Tony DiSanto said Friday that 12 new episodes will air this summer.
According to the network, Pauly D, Mike, Snooki, Jenni, Sammi, Ronnie and Vinny escape the cold northeast and find themselves in a new destination.
The show about tanned twenty-somethings hasn't been without controversy.
In December, the New Jersey Italian American Legislative Caucus called for MTV to cancel the show, saying it promotes derogatory ethnic stereotypes and is "wildly offensive."
MTV isn't revealing how much the cast members are being paid to do the show.
CLIFTON — For the second time in little more than a week, a bomb squad had to detonate a World War II-era grenade found inside a home in Passaic County, authorities said.
Police were called to a home on Normandy Road on Saturday at about 11 a.m. by a resident who said he found a live WWII pineapple grenade in the house, said Passaic County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Bill Maer.
“It had yellow markings on it — military markings showing where the pin was,” Maer said. “The homeowner had picked it up and brought it out to the street.”
Sheriff’s officers took the device and later detonated it at a range at Garret Mountain, Maer said.
Residents living in the home could not be reached for comment Saturday.
On Jan. 22, Wayne police officers were called to a Manor Drive home after a woman found the same type of WWII–era pineapple grenade while cleaning out her house. She, too, moved the device and brought it outside. Neighbors from nearby homes were briefly evacuated in Wayne.
Authorities strongly urge residents not to touch or move any artillery, ammunition or weapons they may find.
“Many men who served in the armed forces brought these things home with them, and now as they are selling their homes or passing away, more are being found,” Maer said.
“This had a good ending but it could have been a tragedy. These items are decades old and can go off easily.”
Anyone who finds such a device is encouraged to call their local police department or the Passaic County Sheriff’s Department at 973-389-5900.
E-mail: williamsb@northjersey.com
CLIFTON — For the second time in little more than a week, a bomb squad had to detonate a World War II-era grenade found inside a home in Passaic County, authorities said.
Police were called to a home on Normandy Road on Saturday at about 11 a.m. by a resident who said he found a live WWII pineapple grenade in the house, said Passaic County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Bill Maer.
“It had yellow markings on it — military markings showing where the pin was,” Maer said. “The homeowner had picked it up and brought it out to the street.”
Sheriff’s officers took the device and later detonated it at a range at Garret Mountain, Maer said.
Residents living in the home could not be reached for comment Saturday.
On Jan. 22, Wayne police officers were called to a Manor Drive home after a woman found the same type of WWII–era pineapple grenade while cleaning out her house. She, too, moved the device and brought it outside. Neighbors from nearby homes were briefly evacuated in Wayne.
Authorities strongly urge residents not to touch or move any artillery, ammunition or weapons they may find.
“Many men who served in the armed forces brought these things home with them, and now as they are selling their homes or passing away, more are being found,” Maer said.
“This had a good ending but it could have been a tragedy. These items are decades old and can go off easily.”
Anyone who finds such a device is encouraged to call their local police department or the Passaic County Sheriff’s Department at 973-389-5900.
HACKENSACK — More than 160 people in need visited the Bergen County Housing, Health and Human Services Center on Wednesday for haircuts, massages and manicures, as well as assistance finding housing, jobs and health care.
The outreach is part of the county’s fourth annual Project Homeless Connect, which also involves taking a census of the county’s homeless. The census is conducted by each county throughout the state during the last week in January.
Julia Orlando, the director of the human services center, said that providing haircuts and massages is a way to attract people in need who have not previously visited the center, which opened at 120 River St. in Hackensack in October.
“We’re seeing some new faces,” Orlando said. “People are really making use of the services today, and it’s not just cosmetic services.”
The center offers medical and mental health screenings, clothing and counseling to help find employment and permanent housing. People who live at the shelter and who use its services felt more comfortable asking questions about other services such as HIV testing and mental health screenings on Wednesday, Orlando said.
“People are very friendly today. It’s an open environment,” she said. “There’s just a lot of hope.”
Stephen Selover, who’s 56 and a resident at the shelter, said he now has reason to hope after a lifetime of hardship. When he was 5-years-old, a state institution took him in because his mother had been putting cigarettes out on his arms, he said. Since then, he has been in and out of state institutions and since 2006 has been living on the streets.
He is now staying at the human services center and is in the process of signing up for classes and finding permanent housing. When that happens, he said he’d like to volunteer at the center.
“I didn’t get my hair cut today,” he said. “I’m giving it to Locks of Love for cancer babies.”
Bergen County Executive Dennis McNerney said that since the center opened, it has helped four dozen people to find permanent residences.
He noted that last January, the county determined that 1,400 people within its borders are homeless.
“Thirty four percent of them are children,” he added.
E-mail: gartland@northjersey.com
HACKENSACK — More than 160 people in need visited the Bergen County Housing, Health and Human Services Center on Wednesday for haircuts, massages and manicures, as well as assistance finding housing, jobs and health care.
The outreach is part of the county’s fourth annual Project Homeless Connect, which also involves taking a census of the county’s homeless. The census is conducted by each county throughout the state during the last week in January.
Julia Orlando, the director of the human services center, said that providing haircuts and massages is a way to attract people in need who have not previously visited the center, which opened at 120 River St. in Hackensack in October.
“We’re seeing some new faces,” Orlando said. “People are really making use of the services today, and it’s not just cosmetic services.”
The center offers medical and mental health screenings, clothing and counseling to help find employment and permanent housing. People who live at the shelter and who use its services felt more comfortable asking questions about other services such as HIV testing and mental health screenings on Wednesday, Orlando said.
“People are very friendly today. It’s an open environment,” she said. “There’s just a lot of hope.”
Stephen Selover, who’s 56 and a resident at the shelter, said he now has reason to hope after a lifetime of hardship. When he was 5-years-old, a state institution took him in because his mother had been putting cigarettes out on his arms, he said. Since then, he has been in and out of state institutions and since 2006 has been living on the streets.
He is now staying at the human services center and is in the process of signing up for classes and finding permanent housing. When that happens, he said he’d like to volunteer at the center.
“I didn’t get my hair cut today,” he said. “I’m giving it to Locks of Love for cancer babies.”
Bergen County Executive Dennis McNerney said that since the center opened, it has helped four dozen people to find permanent residences.
He noted that last January, the county determined that 1,400 people within its borders are homeless.
“Thirty four percent of them are children,” he added.
Screaming parents desperately tossed their children from the windows of a burning Brooklyn apartment building yesterday morning during a horrific blaze that killed five people and that investigators suspect was an arson.
The raging inferno appeared to have started just inside the front door of 2033 86th St. in Bensonhurst at around 2:30 a.m. Flames spread quickly up the stairs, trapping residents inside two crowded apartments, officials said.
As many as 20 Guatemalan immigrants lived on the two floors. While many were able to escape down the building's rear fire escape, several were left hanging out the front windows, panicked and screaming for help as the smoke and flames tore through the roof.
Neighbor Jorge Morales, 39, ran out and spotted Luisa Ordoñez, 33, and husband Miguel Chan, 40, hanging from a third-story window with their children -- 2-month-old Maria Maura, and a 2-year-old boy, Josias -- in their arms.
"I heard Luisa scream, 'I'm going to throw my baby,' " he said. "I tried to catch the baby, but she came down with so much force she went through my hands and hit the ground. We didn't have a chance. Everything happened so quickly. There was no time to think."
The infant suffered a fractured skull in the fall, but is expected to live. Her heroic mother was among those who perished.
Chan then tried to toss Josias to a neighbor hanging out of a second-story window, but the child landed on the awning. Firefighters arriving at the scene were able to pull Chan, the neighbor and the little boy down to safety.
Manuel Alvarez, 32, who lived in the back bedroom on the second floor, said the apartment had been divided into two bedrooms -- each for three people -- and his was cut off from the fire escape.
"We couldn't go out the door because there was just too much smoke," he said. "I had no time to put anything on, I just ran out. I escaped out the back window. Someone found a ladder and put it next to the window and I was able to run down. Thank God I am alive."
At first, firefighters were pushed back by the intensity of the three-alarm blaze, which ultimately caused the second floor to collapse into the restaurant below, officials said.
"The fire spread up through the staircase and right up through the roof," Fire Commissioner Salvatore Cassano said. "It's a very unusual place for a fire to start. It's very likely to be incendiary. If the fire was started intentionally, it would be likely whoever did it was trying to kill."
Once firefighters were able to enter, they found four bodies on the third floor and one in the rubble of what had been the second floor. While firefighters believe everybody was accounted for last night, they plan on searching through the rubble today.
In addition to Ordoñez, neighbors identified Juan Boreno, a construction worker from Guatemala and a father of six, as one of the dead.
Officials said that 13 firefighters were hospitalized, including one who fell through the floor into the basement. It was not immediately clear if the building had been illegally subdivided, but records show the building had been cited for an illegal conversion in 2008.
That problem had been resolved in January 2009. The landlord could not be reached.
WAYNE – Ashley Holmes, the teenager accused of assaulting “Real Housewives of New Jersey” reality star Danielle Staub was found guilty in municipal court Friday and given a minimal fine.
Judge Lawrence Katz said Holmes was guilty of one count of assault from the complaint by Staub.
Prosecutor Tom Melani said said Holmes will have to pay a fine of $189, which includes the $33 court cost.
“I was glad the cameras didn’t show and the proceedings took place like any other proceedings in courts.” Melani said.
The TV drama spilled over into a municipal courtroom in December as Staub, of Wayne, recounted before Katz a Nov. 11 fight at the North Jersey Country Club where the teenage daughter of a castmate allegedly pulled out one of her hair extensions. The actresses were on hand for a fashion show and benefit at the Club off Hamburg Turnpike.
Staub was initially summoned to the court after signing complaints against two of her castmates — Teresa Giudice of Montville and Jacqueline Laurita of Franklin Lakes — and against Holmes, Laurita's 19-year-old daughter, who also lives in Franklin Lakes.
"I'm just a little afraid, to be honest with you," Staub, of Wayne, told the judge at the time.
Holmes’ attorney, Scott Bocker, said Friday that “Ashley was found guilty of the simple assault charge and the judge dismissed the harassment charge. The judge was very sympathetic and I want to thank the prosecutor; when it came down to sentencing Ashley, Mr. Melani also expressed sympathy for Ashley and asked the judge to be extremely lenient."
Staff writer Andrea Alexander contributed to this story.
E-mail: shrestha@northjersey.com
WAYNE – Ashley Holmes, the teenager accused of assaulting “Real Housewives of New Jersey” reality star Danielle Staub was found guilty in municipal court Friday and given a minimal fine.
Judge Lawrence Katz said Holmes was guilty of one count of assault from the complaint by Staub.
Prosecutor Tom Melani said said Holmes will have to pay a fine of $189, which includes the $33 court cost.
“I was glad the cameras didn’t show and the proceedings took place like any other proceedings in courts.” Melani said.
The TV drama spilled over into a municipal courtroom in December as Staub, of Wayne, recounted before Katz a Nov. 11 fight at the North Jersey Country Club where the teenage daughter of a castmate allegedly pulled out one of her hair extensions. The actresses were on hand for a fashion show and benefit at the Club off Hamburg Turnpike.
Staub was initially summoned to the court after signing complaints against two of her castmates — Teresa Giudice of Montville and Jacqueline Laurita of Franklin Lakes — and against Holmes, Laurita's 19-year-old daughter, who also lives in Franklin Lakes.
"I'm just a little afraid, to be honest with you," Staub, of Wayne, told the judge at the time.
Holmes’ attorney, Scott Bocker, said Friday that “Ashley was found guilty of the simple assault charge and the judge dismissed the harassment charge. The judge was very sympathetic and I want to thank the prosecutor; when it came down to sentencing Ashley, Mr. Melani also expressed sympathy for Ashley and asked the judge to be extremely lenient."
Staff writer Andrea Alexander contributed to this story.
Our Harlem apartment has been our home for 18 years -- and we are the third generation to live here -- so when my husband and I fell behind on our mortgage payments it would have felt uncomfortable to give it back to the bank or do anything of that nature.
My husband and I are doing everything we can to work something out. We don't want to let our home go.
This situation affects our entire family. Our two sons were born and raised here. My husband's brothers and sisters were born and raised here. They come over to our place for holidays, because it's the main family home. This apartment holds a lot of memories for them and us.
READ ABOUT THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CRISIS:
I'M WALKING FROM MY UNDERWATER MORTGAGE
We bought the place for next to nothing -- just $250 -- in 1997 when the city sold apartments in the building to the existing rental tenants.
In 2003, we got a mortgage and took out $150,000 in equity to start a restaurant.
Most of the loan went to renovate the restaurant and buy equipment, but before we could open, our lives fell apart. I lost my job as a marketing representative and my mother-in-law got cancer and needed our help. She moved in with us, and we paid for her transportation to the hospital for treatments.
It was hard times, and we decided not to open the restaurant.
We trusted the mortgage broker for the best deal we could get. The mortgage, as it turned out, was an adjustable-rate loan that resulted in the interest rate ballooning to 11.5 percent after two years.
A lot of things happened really fast. I wish now that I would have known better, because we would have made better decisions. But we thought we could keep up.
Our monthly payments after the re-set, of course, were really, really high, and we fell behind. We got late notices, and they raised the interest to almost 18 percent. My husband was working but the payments started to get way more than we could afford with one income, my un employment and the costs of my mother- in-law's care and -- after she lost her brave fight with can cer -- her funeral.
Still, we thought we were working things out. I was try ing really hard to find another job so we could keep the apartment. Then I got a call from my sister-in-law -- there was a legal notice in the paper that the apartment was going to be auctioned off.
That was the toughest moment. I had to go to my husband's sister's and pick up the notice. Reading it was appalling. I couldn't believe it. I tried to call the bank's lawyer, who refused to call us back. It seemed like it was more important to them to sell the apartment than give us a chance to pay back the loan.
Time was ticking down, so my husband filed for bankruptcy last May. Now we have a chance to figure out a way to pay our debts -- while continuing to make our mortgage payments. Our lawyer, David Schaev, is working out a plan to cut our interest rate that will slice our monthly payment by at least $400.
I was afraid of going into bankruptcy, but if we can keep our place, it's worth it. We might end up owing more than the apartment is worth but we are going to stay and fight for our home.
