Editors hit dog slayer, but not cop who ran down woman

In the more than seven years I've lived in Hackensack, the lack of turn lanes on Passaic Street at Summit Avenue constitutes an annoying bottleneck at almost any time of day, because cars can't pass turning vehicles on narrow, antiquated Passaic.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

If you're wealthy and live in a good town, you can get The Record to use Page 1 for your endless complaints about a cop who shot and killed your vicious dog.

And the editors will even demonize the officer by dredging up his past involvement in the unrelated death of a suspect in Newark more than four years ago (A-1).

But if you're a Vietnamese-American woman living alone in a shabby Hackensack apartment building and get run down by a detective as you're crossing the street, the editors won't even question why no charges were filed against the driver in your death.

That's the stark contrast presented by today's front-page story on Wyckoff Patrolman Kyle Ferreira, who shot and killed a German shepherd that lunged at him and bit his boot when he was investigating a burglary report on April 29 (A-1).

The Record reports that when Ferreira was a Newark police officer in 2010, his patrol car fatally injured a fleeing domestic violence suspect.

Cop kills woman

On March 11, The Record ran a single story on the death of Hue D. Dang, 64, who was fatally injured two days earlier by an unmarked car driven by John C. Straniero, an off-duty detective sergeant from the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office.

The story, reported by telephone, omitted key facts:

Dang was walking in or near a crosswalk when she was struck on Jackson Avenue and Kennedy Street in Hackensack, only a few blocks away from where she lived.

The 5-foot, 100-pound woman, who was carrying a plastic grocery bag, fell and struck her head, leaving heavy blood stains on the pavement.

Hackensack police filed no charges of any kind against Straniero, 49, of Wayne, but the accident is being reviewed by the Union County Prosecutor's Office.

The Record's editors never questioned the decision of Hackensack police nor did they do a follow-up story.

Hue D. Dang's blood, right,  staining the pavement hours after she was fatally injured crossing Jackson Avenue in Hackensack. This photo, from a neighborhood resident, also shows police markings that indicate the unmarked car's right rear tire, left, stopped in the crosswalk, below.

The driver who killed Dang was turning the corner of Jackson Avenue and Kennedy Street toward the ramp for Route 80 west.

Also on Page 1

The A-1 story on the 1915 sinking of the Lusitania is a huge waste of precious space. Why was it written by the paper's transportation reporter?

There is nothing sillier than a reporter who covers a court hearing on Governor Christie's sleight of hand with state pension payments, and tries to predict how the judges are leaning on the issue from their questions to the lawyers on both sides (A-1).

That reminds me of an editor in Hackensack who asked me when a jury would be returning with a verdict in a federal court trial I covered for The Record.

Local news

The Record's story on two people who were fatally injured by a Washington Township police cruiser as they were walking in a travel lane of the New Jersey Turnpike doesn't report the time of the accident early Wednesday (L-1).

But the story does say Sgt. Arsenio Pecora was involved in a training exercise at Fort Dix that ended "shortly before 1 a.m." Wednesday (L-6).

Cliffview Pilot.com reported the pair were struck by Pecora's cruiser at 1:06 a.m., according to state police.

They were pronounce dead at the scene at 4:33 a.m.