Free Republic

<p>A New Jersey Staples shopper with her nose poking out of her mask pushed another woman to the ground, breaking her leg, after being told to keep her uncovered schnoz six feet away.</p> <p>The social-distancing encounter unfolded just after 3:15 p.m. on Wednesday at a Hackensack location, where the unknown assailant improperly wearing a mask walked up a 54-year-old woman using a copy machine, police said.</p>

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainee who contracted the Chinese coronavirus has been released from the Bergen County Jail in Hackensack, New Jersey. The infected detainee was released following a federal judge in New York City ordering ten illegal aliens released from custody citing “inadequate conditions.” “The risk that Petitioners will face a severe, and quite possibly fatal, infection if they remain in immigration detention constitutes irreparable harm warranting a TRO,” US District Court Judge Analisa Torres wrote in her order. “Respondents have exhibited, and continue to exhibit, deliberate indifference to Petitioners’ medical needs.” Bergen County officials maintain that the...

Philip Cerone, 29, of Maywood, is a former teacher's aide serving probation for criminal sexual contact. The victim is suing Cerone and two districts where he worked.Bergen County Prosecutor's Office A 20-year-old woman has sued two school districts in Bergen County claiming she was sexually assaulted by a teacher’s aide and officials at two schools did nothing to intervene. The woman claims Philip Cerone, of Maywood, carried on an illegal relationship with her from April 2016 to October 2017 while she was a student at Hackensack High School and a volunteer under Cerone’s supervision at South Hackensack Memorial School...

HACKENSACK — To protect undocumented students and their families, city school officials will protect information regarding students' immigration status and deny immigration agents entry to schools unless the federal officers have a warrant. The Access to Education, Student Privacy and Immigration Enforcement policy was unanimously approved Monday by the school board. The regulations prevent employees from requesting information that identifies students' immigration status or makes it easier to detain undocumented immigrants, such as birth certificates and driver's licenses. Public schools are already prohibited from requiring students to divulge their immigration status and are listed as "sensitive locations," or places where...

Was the Korean Attack a Mistake? Washington fears Kim Jong-Il ordered the attack that has the Koreas on the brink. But North Korea says it was an accident, according to America's unlikeliest diplomat. Is it possible that a self-described “goomba” who owns a northern New Jersey barbeque joint has the answers to the latest crisis with North Korea—a showdown over a sunken South Korean warship that may be the most serious threat to peace since the Korean War? American diplomats and F.B.I. agents acknowledge that Robert “Bobby” Egan, owner of Cubby’s BBQ Restaurant in Hackensack, New Jersey, has managed over...

The USS Ling has been berthed in the Hackensack River for more than 40 years – and it might be stuck there. The 312-foot, 2,500-ton World War II-era submarine is the featured exhibit of the New Jersey Naval Museum, which occupies a trailer on land that was once the headquarters of the North Jersey Media Group, which was sold to Gannett in July and publishes The Record. The Ling has been anchored off the riverbank behind the newspaper’s former headquarters for decades. Now, however, museum officials are grappling with the logistical and financially daunting challenge of moving the submarine, which...

Two Republican officials in New Jersey are switching political parties over what they say are racist comments made by presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. Hackensack Mayor John Labrosse and Deputy Mayor Kathleen Canestrino changed their party affiliation to independents on Thursday. […] Labrosse and Canestrino say there was not a specific comment that influenced their decision. They say it was the general tone of the campaign. …

HACKENSACK (WABC) -- Authorities are investigating a deadly police-involved shooting in New Jersey Thursday in which a 24-year-old allegedly armed with a knife was fatally shot by officers. The incident occurred on Temple Avenue in Hackensack around 1:30 p.m. Authorities say three officers were dispatched to 10 Temple Avenue for a probation welfare check on 24-year-old Elvin Diaz. It is unclear exactly what transpired next, but Diaz, who sources say displayed a knife, ended up shot several times. Diaz was rushed to Hackensack University Medical Center, where he later died. Two officers were also hospitalized as a precaution, but they...

HACKENSACK — City resident Edward Garner thought he was getting a parking ticket for some violation on Main Street Monday, even with 40 minutes left on his meter. Despite Garner's pleas, Officer Frank Garrett handed him a "summons" that contained a note from the city's police director himself: "Wishing you and your family a wonderful holiday season and a healthy and peaceful new year." Garner, 57, stared at the "ticket" as his wife Victoria laughed in the car. "You know, at my age I could have a heart attack!" he admonished the officer before cracking up. Garner's "ticket" was one...

James Brady, the formerly homeless man who earned national praise for turning in $850 he found on the street in Hackensack, learned the hard way this week that no good deed goes unpunished. Brady was denied General Assistance and Medicaid benefits by the Hackensack Human Services Department through Dec. 31 because he failed to report new income he received. The income, according to the agency, was the cash he found on Main Street last spring and that police returned to him in October after no one claimed it. The good deed turned Brady, who was homeless at the time he...

HACKENSACK — Two items presumed stolen from the USS Ling submarine almost 30 years ago have been returned to the New Jersey Naval Museum after turning up on eBay for five days.  A brass wheel and an aluminum compartment checkoff list, both missing from the Ling since the early 1980s, were returned to the museum by the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office on Monday. The relics were presented during a special ceremony with more than two dozen members of the United States Submarine Veterans of World War II. The Ling was a 1940s-era Balao-class submarine. "I never thought I'd have an...

Calling him "a cold-blooded wiseass," a judge sentenced a 22-year-old man to life in prison Friday for murdering a Hackensack man over a $30 drug deal. "You shot him in front of his wife," Superior Court Judge Donald R. Venezia told Akeem Fleming. "And you walked away smugly. You didn't care." Fleming was 17 when Anthony Settipane, a house painter, went to Central Avenue in Hackensack with his wife to buy drugs on Dec. 10, 2001. A jury in Superior Court in Hackensack found that Fleming took $30 from Settipane and walked away without delivering the drugs. When the Settipanes...

HACKENSACK - Marlin G. Townes Jr. was sworn in as Hackensack's first African-American mayor Friday, but the City Council also announced a power-sharing arrangement under which he will serve just a year. The council also selected Councilwoman Karen K. Sasso as deputy mayor and hired Joseph Zisa, the cousin of former Mayor Jack Zisa, as city attorney. Traditionally, the mayor is the council member who received the most votes in the general election. Joseph DeFalco had been the front-runner to be the next mayor, but he died the morning of May 10, just hours after voting began. Instead, Townes received...

I was getting my annual mammogram at the Hackensack University Medical Center today. The office was now called the "Betty Torricelli Institute for Breast Care." Her name had to have been added sometime during the last year because I know it had never been there before. I made a VERY large point to their management and public relations people at how odious it was to honor the criminal Senator, even if it was actually his mother. They acknowledged that the Torch had not paid money for this honor (as is customary for named buildings.) The p.r. person told me that...