Suburban cop kills dog, pushing black deaths off Page 1

Even though temperatures were in the 60s on Sunday, this apparently homeless man was seen on Main Street in Hackensack, wearing two winter parkas. A nearby county shelter, built years ago over city officials' objections, serves three frees meals a day, making the county seat the homeless capitol of Bergen County.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Did you read about Otto Vukobratovic  of Wyckoff on the front page of The Record today, fr0m his birth more than five years ago to his untimely death on Wednesday afternoon?

Ignoring that Otto was only a dog, Editor Martin Gottlieb devotes more space to this animal than the vast majority of humans get in the Woodland Park daily when they die, even if their families pay for a death notice.

Let's cut to the chase. 

According to Wyckoff police, Patrolman Kyle Ferreira was investigating a burglary report, but went to the wrong house, and Otto lunged at him and grabbed onto the cop's boot. 

Four shots put an end to the attack. The dog, hit by two bullets, died later at an animal hospital.

Dog v. teens

Otto not only gets more space than humans, his story is told more prominently than that of many black teens and men who die in police custody, at the hands of police or in such drive-by shootings as the ones in Paterson.

Of course, when you see what else is on Page 1 today, you might understand why Gottlieb made such a fuss over a story that should have been played in the Local section.

Forced busing

Road Warrior John Cichowski is too weary to bother with trying to report extensively on the woes facing thousands of NJ Transit bus riders, including the lack of rush-hour seats.

So, he found an idiotic couple who actually took a red eye flight back from their Seattle vacation to attend a cut-rate preview on Broadway, and claim a Manhattan-bound bus "never came" (A-1).

Who cares? And why is this moronic column that is so untypical of the experience of tens of thousands of bus riders, on Page 1 today?

Older drivers

Two older drivers get The Record's typical shabby treatment, especially compared to the lavish coverage of Otto's death.

An 88-year-old driver whose car "ripped" through a guardrail as he exited the parkway in Washington Township isn't identified. He survived (L-1).

A brief on L-3 finally identifies the Hasbrouck Heights man, 85, who apparently got sick, sending his car into the opposing lane and into a head-on collision in Hackensack on Tuesday, killing him.

But we learn nothing about Victor T. Herbert except his name.

Meat eaters

If the quality of the beef at Eric's Steak House is as mysterious as it is at most other Korean-owned restaurants in Palisades Park, you might want to pass (BL-18).

But Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung was so busy eating she forgot to tell readers whether the restaurant's beef is naturally raised or filled with such harmful additives as antibiotics and growth hormones.

The best she can do is say the $58.99 Cowboy Steak "showed off an assertive beefy goodness."

She complains a prime ribeye came in four "fatty" slices ($45.99)," ignoring that "prime" is a USDA grade given to the fattiest beef.

Bridgegate

A slimmed-down David Wildstein, a former Port Authority official and ally of Governor Christie, pleaded guilty today to the first charges stemming from the federal investigation of the George Washington Bridge lane-closing scandal, The New York Times is reporting.

Two people who were close to Christie also are expected to be indicted today, The Times says.

They are Bill Baroni, former Port Authority deputy executive director, and Bridget Anne Kelly, who as the governor's deputy chief of staff sent an infamous email to Wildstein:

"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."

Standing before a federal judge in Newark, Wildstein admitted he conspired with Baroni and Kelly to close bridge access lanes on the first day of school in September 2013 to punish the borough's Democratic mayor for refusing to endorse the GOP bully's reelection.