Police: 911 calls in pedestrian fatality 'were not recorded'

On March 9, did the driver whose silver 2011 Ford Crown Victoria hit and fatally injure a woman crossing Jackson Avenue and Kennedy Street, above, call 911 to report the accident to police, and did he identify himself as a detective with the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office? 

A diagram on the police report shows the pedestrian fell with her feet in the crosswalk. No charges were filed against the driver for failing to yield to her.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Did Hackensack police botch the investigation into a March 9 pedestrian accident or are they trying to cover for a fellow law-enforcement officer who wasn't charged in the death of a 64-year-old woman?

Police now say the 911 call or calls alerting them to the rush-hour accident near Route 80 "were not recorded."

That means there is no way to know whether Detective Sgt. John C. Straniero, 49, of the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office called 911 to report the accident immediately and whether he identified himself as a law-enforcement officer.

Nor whether he came to a full stop at the stop sign and yielded to the woman crossing from his right. Or, was he looking left for oncoming traffic before he turned right and struck her?

Or, as neighborhood residents speculate, whether he was on the phone before he hit her.

This week, Hackensack denied an Open Public Records Act request for an interview with Straniero police videotaped the day after the accident.

No charges filed

Hackensack filed no charges against the detective in the death of Hue D. Dang, a Vietnamese-American woman who was struck as she crossed Jackson Avenue and Kennedy Street, according to a diagram on the police report, which shows she fell with her feet in the crosswalk.

A plastic grocery bag the 5-foot, 100-pound woman was carrying fell next to a wheel of the unmarked car, said a woman in the neighborhood who recalled police refused to answer her questions, told her to go away and said she could read about the accident in the newspaper the next day.

Dang, a former supermarket cashier who lived only a few blocks away from where she was struck, died less than an hour later at Hackensack University Medical Center.

After she was taken away in an ambulance, a resident took a photo of the blood that flowed from her head and stained the pavement near the crosswalk.

News story

The Record's single story didn't appear until March 11, two days later, and police, who didn't mention the Jackson Avenue crosswalk to the reporter, claimed they didn't know where Dang was "standing" when she was struck. 

Capt. Nicole Foley, then head of the Traffic Division, also told reporter Stefanie Dazio in a phone interview the detective stopped at the stop sign, then struck the woman as he turned right.

But Foley said there were no witnesses, adding the traffic fatality appears to be the result of an accident."

"She [Foley] said she did not anticipate criminal charges or motor vehicle charges being filed against Straniero," Dazio reported. 

911 call

In response to an OPRA request, Eye on The Record was given a one-paragraph explanation, dated April 9, from Police Office Bryan Feuilly to Capt. Tim Lloyd, the new officer-in-charge of the Hackensack department:

"Due to the new Toshiba phone system being installed, the 911 call(s) and/0r radio transmissions regarding the pedestrian struck ... on 3/09/2015 at 16:44 hours at the intersection of Jackson Ave. and Kennedy St. were not recorded.

"There was an issue with the voice logger not being compatible with the new phone system. The old system was Avaya. This issue has since been rectified," Feuilly said.

Today's paper

Page 1 of The Record reports a court threw a wrench into Governor Christie's voodoo budget balancing, blocking his attempt to use $160 million earmarked for affordable housing (A-1).

Unfortunately, Editor Martin Gottlieb devotes a huge amount of the front page to a ceremony in Virginia for a Dumont native who was among 32 students killed on April 16, 2007, and a silly sports column (A-1).

Otherwise, he could have run a sidebar to the court ruling explaining how Christie's inflexible no-tax policies -- especially his vetoes of a surcharge on millionaires and refusal to raise the low gasoline levy -- have wrecked the state economy.

Local news?

There are at least a dozen police or court stories fleshing out today's thin Local-news section (L-1 to L-6), another disappointing performance by Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza.

Thumbs down

When Elisa Ung spends half of her short review on background information for Sear House Grill in Little Falls, you know the food and service were mediocre (BL-14).

This place charges $84 for enough mystery beef to choke a horse, but the ravenous reporter found room to sample a few artery clogging desserts.

Non-profit medical center giving Hackensack $5.1 million

At Tuesday night's meeting of the Hackensack City Council, Jerry Lombardo, right, chairman of the Upper Main Street Alliance, announced that two developers, Alfred Sanzari Enterprises and Meridia, are donating $40,000 toward the cost of the Atlantic Street park the business group urged the city to build on downtown parking lots. George Capodagli, the developer behind the Meridia Metro apartment project on State Street, is giving $25,000 of that amount.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Hackensack University Medical Center, a non-profit that holds more than $130 million in tax-exempt property, will pay the city $5.1 million over three years, officials said Tuesday night.

In a second development, Capt. Nicole Foley, head of the Hackensack police Traffic Division, has been reassigned.

The move came after numerous complaints from residents that police failed to enforce no-parking rules on 70 streets during the winter, entombing vehicles, hampering snow clearing and endangering drivers on streets too narrow for two cars to pass.

HUMC payments

At Tuesday night's City Council meeting, City Manager David Troast said as the result of "tax appeals," the huge medical center will contribute $5.1 million over three years for "progressive projects."

He declined to be more specific.

At earlier meetings, Mayor John Labrosse, an HUMC employee, said the city was talking with the medical center about paying for the repaving of Prospect Avenue, a heavily traveled street lined with high-rises that resembles a third-world camel track from the pounding of traffic, including ambulances.

But the repaving of Prospect and other streets was announced a couple of weeks ago with financing from a bond and grants.

City Manager David Troast said a "frugal budget" approved by the Hackensack City Council will raise municipal taxes 3.99% or a hike of $155.99 on the average home. During the public portion of the meeting Tuesday night, no resident rose to comment on the spending plan.

Capt. Foley

The reassignment of Hackensack police Capt. Foley apparently is unrelated to the fatal pedestrian accident on March 9, when she cleared a detective of any wrongdoing in the death of a 64-year-old Vietnamese-American woman.

Foley was quoted in The Record's March 11 story on the accident at Jackson Avenue and Kennedy Street, saying police do not know where Hue D. Dang was "standing" when she was hit by an unmarked car driven by Detective Sgt. John C. Straniero, 49, of Wayne.

Foley did not mention the Jackson Avenue crosswalk to The Record's police reporter, Stefanie Dazio, nor tell her Dang fell to the pavement with her feet in the crosswalk and that a plastic grocery bag she was carrying fell next to one of the car's wheel.

Neighborhood residents believe Straniero may have been looking left to see if traffic on Kennedy was approaching Jackson Avenue and turned right toward Route 80 ramps, hitting the woman when she was in or near the crosswalk.

On Wednesday, one resident referred to Dang as the "woman who got creamed."

When Eye on The Record contacted the state police and state Attorney's General Office, expressing concern that no charges were filed against the detective, the Union County prosecutor's fatal accident unit was asked to investigate.

Today' paper

Staff Writer Todd South of The Record covered Tuesday night's Hackensack City Council meeting, but any story he may have written doesn't appear in the paper today.

As you can see from the Local section, crime news took precedence on L-1 and L-2.

Page 1

For the second day in a row, Editor Martin Gottlieb blesses readers with another all-New Jersey front page (A-1).

Unfortunately, Gottlieb included a boring Charles Stile column on Governor Christie's presidential ambitions that reads much like the 100 others the Trenton reporter has written on the same subject (A-1).

If you Google "Charles Stile and Governor Christie," you get 18,700 "results."

Gottlieb also included a big photo of Tiger Woods and his adorable children as the editor and sports Columnist Tara Sullivan try to help the wealthy pro golfer rehabilitate his image as a womanizer and home breaker (L-1 and S-1).

David Samson

In an unintentionally hilarious story, Staff Writer Shawn Boburg reports David Samson --Christie's father figure, confidant and adviser -- is retiring from the practice of law (A-1).

What's hilarious is that his firm, Wolff & Samson, is changing its name to a real tongue twister -- Chiesa Shahinian & Giantomasi -- and will likely lose millions in billings to other firms that are easier to remember.

Samson resigned as Port Authority chairman, the job Christie gave him, in the wake of the Bridgegate scandal. 

More corrections

Local Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza, and Production Editor Liz Houlton admit today to two major screw-ups on Tuesday's A-1 and in an L-3 story on March 31.

Detailed corrections appear on A-2 today.

One correction notes one of the Woodland Park daily's front-page stories on the murder-suicide in Elmwood Park incorrectly reported the day on which the elderly couple died.

"It was Sunday" (not "Wednesday afternoon"), the correction states, referring to Michael Juskin, 100, who killed his wife, Rosalia, 88, with an ax before slitting his wrists (see A-1 follow-up today).

In Tuesday's story, the "Wednesday afternoon" reference appears in the first paragraph of Staff Writer Stephanie Akin's A-1 sidebar on the prevalence of domestic violence among seniors.

How many editors read that first paragraph and missed the error before it was published?

How many of those editors are pulling down six figures and laughing all the way to the bank?

Don Smith

Photographs credited to veteran Staff Photographer Don Smith have been missing for weeks. 

Is he on vacation? Did he get fired? Has there been another downsizing at North Jersey Media Group?

Report: Woman hit by cop's car fell with feet in crosswalk

The Hackensack Police Department report on the March 9 pedestrian fatality on Jackson Avenue and Kennedy Street includes a diagram showing that the victim, Hue D. Dang, landed with her feet in the crosswalk after she was struck by a detective's unmarked car, above. The police officer who wrote the report says the diagram is "an approximation."

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Hackensack police will not be filing any charges against a Bergen County Prosecutor's Office detective in the death of a woman, even though their report shows she landed with her feet in the crosswalk after he struck her with his unmarked car on March 9.

This afternoon, police insisted they still do not know where the victim, Hue D. Dang, 64, of Hackensack, was standing or walking when she was struck and fatally injured by Detective Sgt. John C. Straniero's car.

Police Director Mike Mordaga and Capt. Nicole Foley were not available for comment today. Foley, head of the traffic division, was quoted in The Record's March 11 story on the accident.

Mordaga was chief of detectives in the Prosecutor's Office until 2007. He took over as director of the Hackensack department in February 2013. 

Maureen Parenta, communications director for Prosecutor John L. Molinelli, said the office would have no comment because one of its members was involved.

Hackensack Police Officer Timothy Sroka said the diagram in his report is "an approximation," adding police still do not know where the woman was when she was struck by Straniero's silver Ford Crown Victoria.

The report, apparently based on statements from Detective Straniero, cited a fence with aluminum slats "which partially obstructed view on northwest corner of Kennedy Street and Jackson Avenue."

"There was also a large amount of sun glare from the west as the sun was low in the sky at the time," the report says.

Sroka wouldn't answer a natural question: How can a driver kill a woman and not be charged with anything?

The documents turned over to Eye on The Record after an Open Public Records Act request included a report that Sroka took a video statement from Detective Straniero at 10 a.m. on March 10, the day after the accident.

Today, Eye on The Record filed an OPRA request for the transcript of that interview. 

Eye on The Record also has contacted the state police and state Attorney General's Office to express concern that the detective escaped even a traffic charge, such as failing to yield to a pedestrian.

See previous posts:

Residents: Detective's car struck woman near crosswalk

Cops won't release fatality report without OPRA request

The "RR" markings on the pavement show the car, driven by Detective Sgt. John C. Straniero of the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office, stopped with the right rear wheel in the Jackson Avenue crosswalk after knocking down the 5-foot, 100-pound woman.

After the accident on March 9, the victim's blood stained the pavement, right. Police said she was bleeding "from her ears, eyes, nose, and head," and was pronounced dead less than an hour later at Hackensack University Medical Center. The woman landed on her back parallel to the passenger side of the car, police said, so her feet could have been in the crosswalk, left.

The crosswalk and corner where the woman was fatally injured, in a photo I took from behind the wheel of my car today. The police report cited the fence, right, as "partially" obstructing the view of the corner. Aluminum slats on the fence were removed after the accident.

Who was Hue Dang?

Hue D. Dang lived in an apartment building on Hudson Street, between Route 80 and Kennedy Street, only a few blocks away from where she was fatally injured.

People who live nearby said she was carrying plastic grocery bags when she was hit by the detective's car.

She worked as a cashier at the ShopRite in Paramus until 2013, one of her relatives said.

In 1975, Dang and seven siblings came to the United States with their parents as refugees from the Vietnam War.

Today's paper

Editor Martin Gottlieb again screws North Jersey readers with a front page dominated by an air disaster in Europe and Sen. Bob Menendez's legal troubles (A-1).

The Local front is filled with a huge, gee-whiz accident photo from Route 208, and Pages L-1, L-2 and L-3 have lots of court and police news for crime and lawsuit junkies.

'Wildly expensive'

Staff Writer Elisa Ung chose the "wildly expensive" Grissini in Englewood Cliffs to review.

She and a co-worker blew hundreds of dollars on two dinners of Italian-American food, rating the noisy restaurant Good to Excellent (BL-14).

Ung gorged on a $48 rack of lamb, but didn't bother to grill the owner on whether the meat was naturally raised. Ditto for a hunk of filet mignon at $45.

And she had to sample two artery clogging desserts, zabaglione at $30 for two and a ricotta cheese cake with tiramisu for $9.

Her Friday reviews continue to run with the same coy thumbnail photo she has been using since 2006, but it's time to update it and include her double chin.

Residents: Detective's car struck woman near crosswalk

The blood of a 64-year-old woman staining the pavement, right, on Kennedy Street and Jackson Avenue in Hackensack amid markings left by investigators last Monday after the pedestrian was fatally injured by a lawman's unmarked car. The "RR" marking, left, indicates the car's rear tire stopped inside the Jackson Avenue crosswalk, shown in the photo below. The blood-stain photo was taken by a resident of the neighborhood the night of the accident.

The proximity of the bloodstain to the corner of Kennedy Street and Jackson Avenue, and the crosswalk, above, appears to be at variance with the account that appeared on Wednesday in The Record, which quoted Capt. Nicole Foley of the Hackensack police. I tried to reach Foley on Friday, but she didn't respond to a message left on her voice mail. This photo was taken today and the woman's blood is no longer visible.

"LR," "LF" and "RR" are markings that indicate where the tires of the Ford Crown Victoria were when the vehicle stopped on Monday about 4:45 p.m. after striking Hue Dang, whose plastic grocery bags were strewn on the pavement after the accident, according to residents who live nearby. She was pronounced dead at Hackensack University Medical Center less than an hour later.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

People who live near the Hackensack corner where a 64-year-old woman was struck and fatally injured last Monday afternoon question why the prosecutor's detective driving the car was not charged.

Photographs taken by residents and supplied to Eye on The Record appear to contradict the single story that quoted Hackensack police and appeared in The Record on Wednesday.

The Woodland Park daily reported John Straniero, 49, of Wayne, a detective sergeant with the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office, had stopped his 2011 Ford Crown Victoria for the stop sign on Jackson Avenue and Kennedy Street.

"When he made a right turn onto Kennedy, police said, his car struck the woman," according to the story, which was done by telephone.

"It's unclear where Dang was standing," the story said. "[Capt. Nicole] Foley said there were no witnesses."

But the woman's blood stained the pavement very close to the corner, and the unmarked car's right rear tire stopped in the Jackson Avenue crosswalk, so Straniero doesn't appear to have "made a right turn," as the story reported.

The story doesn't even mention the crosswalk, and the reporter apparently didn't ask police if the victim was in the crosswalk when she was struck.

In that story, Staff Writer Stefani Dazio quoted Foley of the Hackensack police as saying "the traffic fatality appears to be the result of an accident," and that "she [Foley] did not anticipate criminal charges or motor vehicle charges being filed against Straniero."

But people who live nearby question why police said there were no witnesses.

Neighbors say the streets are usually packed with drivers heading home during the afternoon rush hour, and that Jackson Avenue is a shortcut to Kennedy Street and the ramps to Route 80 east and west.

One resident speculated Straniero, the detective, was looking at his phone and didn't see the woman crossing in front of his car, possibly in the Jackson Avenue crosswalk, before he struck her.

Today's paper

Why did The Record wait so many years before tackling the issue of campus rape in New Jersey, as the editors do in today's lead Page 1 story.

In her first tedious paragraph, Staff Writer Mary Jo Layton cites "the epidemic of sexual assaults among students" (A-1).

"Among students"? 

Hey, Mary Jo, aren't you talking mostly about men victimizing women? Why pussy foot around the assaults, which many college administrators try to keep quiet?

Also on Page 1 today, Columnist Charles Stile regurgitates another column on Governor Christie's "right turn" the reporter apparently has on a save-get key now that the GOP bully is likely to run for president (A-1).

And would you look at that gee-whiz front-page photo of wealthy people's yachts wrecked by a cyclone in the middle of nowhere (A-1). What a waste of space.

Defective reporters

Road Warrior John Cichowski still doesn't get that the biggest problem faced by drivers and other commuters is increasing traffic congestion and the lack of mass transit in North Jersey (L-1).

Meanwhile, on the Better Living cover today, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung uses her Sunday column to build up the image of an organizer of food events and festivals, as well as celebrity chefs.

The schizophrenic reporter supposedly represents restaurant goers in her Friday fine-dining reviews, then, on Sundays, completely turns her back on the issues that concern them.

On the Opinion front, a photo of Mike Kelly's shit-eating grin appears next to a notice:

"Record Columnist Mike Kelly is off." 

Way off.