Killings of police are rare compared to minority deaths

Traffic is funneled into one lane in each direction during reconstruction of the Route 46 bridge over the Hackensack River, above. Last week, President Obama said as many as 1 million jobs would be created, if Congress authorized the rebuilding of the nation's roads and bridges, compared to a fraction of that number for completion of the Keystone Pipeline.

I was 11th on the line of commuters waiting for NJ Transit's 165 Turnpike Express to Hackensack and Westwood, scheduled to leave the bus terminal in Manhattan at 3:05 last Tuesday afternoon. By the time the bus came, the line doubled back on itself and grew to more than 40. Commuters are sitting on the floor, left, because the Port Authority provides few seats or other creature comforts for them.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

At the end of the long story leading Page 1 of The Record today, wire service reporters note "the last shooting death of an NYPD officer came in December 2011" (A-12).

The hard-luck editors who got stuck working on Saturday just slapped The Associated Press story into the paper.

They forgot to localize the deaths of two NYPD cops at the hands of a black gunman by bringing up Jersey City Police Officer Melvin Santiago, who was shot and killed by a black robbery suspect.

Santiago was killed last July 13, as Staff Writer Mike Kelly reported six days ago in an Opinion page column that drew praise from readers in two letters to the editor on Saturday's A-15.


Kelly's resume

Kelly's column was too long, especially because the reporter reminded readers what a great journalist he is -- the book he wrote on the fatal police shooting of a black Teaneck teen, the Ku Klux Klan resurgence he covered.

He said the killing of Santiago and other police officers by black gunmen should be made part of "America's racial conversation."

Of course, what Kelly didn't say is that the deaths of Santiago and the two NYPD cops on Saturday are relatively rare.

Far more numerous are the deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown and all of the other minorities at the hands of white police officers who are guilty of racial profiling and abusing their authority.   

Elderly coverage

The Record's editors ignore Alzheimer's disease and the challenges facing older drivers, but assign Jay Levin to cover the elderly in his local obituaries and, as he does today, in his occasional story on a 90- or 100-year-old who still is alive and kicking (A-1).

What a terrific photo Herman Schnipper of Hackensack took of sailors at attention in 1945 on the deck of the USS Astoria (A-1). Too bad it is so small.

The much larger photo on A-1 today is one of shoppers at Westfield Garden State Plaza -- yet another example of how the editors prostrate themselves in front of big advertisers to the detriment of readers (Local front).

Food promotions

See the Better Living section today for heavy promotion of restaurants, cookbooks and small kitchen appliances (BL-2).

Hungry? Why not try Millie's "famous Pot-of-Balls"? LOL.

Saturday's paper

The "non-profit" Hackensack University Medical Center has obliterated the residential appeal of its Hackensack neighborhood and uses a lot of city services, yet pays no taxes on more than $180 million in property.

Now, Medicare is fining HUMC for not keeping elderly patients safe, according to a Page 1 story on Saturday.

Only Bergen Regional Medical Center in Paramus -- the former Bergen Pines -- did worse.

Well, at least Englewood Hospital and Medical Center is only about 7 miles away.

Putz Prize

In a letter to the editor on Saturday's A-15, Dave Tomney of Maywood commented on Kelly's Dec. 14 column on the slain Jersey City police officer, declaring the reporter will win the Pulitzer Prize.

Or, as former Breaking News Editor Jerry DeMarco would say, "Pull It, Sir" Prize.

No jail for bus driver

The crying need to jail drivers who kill pedestrians is apparent in a Local front story on Saturday.

A judge sentenced former NJ Transit driver Catherine Collier to probation after she was charged with vehicular homicide in the Sept. 27, 2012, death of Joseph Currier, 49, a Passaic man who was struck by her bus in a crosswalk.

Collier accelerated "and ended up running a red light before hitting Currier," according to prosecutors, but the former bus driver claimed at sentencing it was not her "intention for this to happen."

This story by Staff Writer Kibret Markos is filled with unanswered questions:

Why was Collier, 67, who was charged with vehicular homicide, allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge?

Judge Adam Jacobs sentenced her to a one-year suspended jail term, apparently for assault by auto.

The judge ignored the victim's mother, who said at sentencing, "I['d] like to see justice done for my son."

See this Facebook page for another instance where an NJ Transit bus driver killed a pedestrian:

Innocent People Who Lost Their Lives ...

Columnist re-used anecdotes, quotes from a year ago

Work continues on the NJ Transit train station on Anderson Street in Hackensack, above and below. When completed, the station will have the first waiting room for city commuters in many years.

How much did NJ Transit save by using a smaller sign that required the abbreviation of Anderson Street? Now, commuters freeze their you-know-whats off while waiting in bus shelters, below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

A seemingly innocent Record column with advice about getting a Black Friday parking space at the mall hid a multitude of journalistic sins.

Chief among them is that Staff Writer John Cichowski lifted the people, quotes and advice in Friday's L-1 column from a year-old Road Warrior piece on the same subject.

Hello again, Amy

The veteran reporter took several short cuts to avoid actually leaving the office and interviewing shoppers for their experiences and advice.

On Friday, he reported the experience of  "Amy Strauss and her cousin," whose car was blocked by two drivers competing for her space -- just as he did in his 2012 column.

Even the quote from Strauss was lifted word-for-word from the year-old column.

On Friday's continuation page, he cited a study on which car colors are most attractive to thieves -- in the Netherlands, not mall-rich Paramus.

All of the flaws in Friday's column are revealed on the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers in The Record.

Stale Road Warrior column given new life

A concerned reader's e-mail listing the errors, distortions and other problems has been sent to everyone from Vice President/General Counsel Jennifer A. Borg to Editor Marty Gottlieb to Cichowksi's assignment editor to the addled reporter himself.

Another recipient of the e-mail is Production Editor Liz Houlton, the six-figure copy and news desk supervisor whose job it is to fact-check Cichowski's columns. 

Today's paper

The only items on today's front page of any real interest to readers is a brief reporting truckers hit with big toll hikes on the GWB and other crossings "may no longer be willing to take runs through the New York metro area" (A-1 and L-1).

I can't wait. Good riddance to all those lead-footed truckers who seem intent on rolling over your car, if you dare drive only 5 mph or 10 mph over the limit on Route 80 and other highways.

Other stories on Page 1 -- on the Affordable Health Care Web site, the decades-old protest by religious crackpots at an Englewood abortion clinic, and Governor Christie's laughable tax-cut plan -- are the kind of manufactured controversies the media specializes in.

Check out the correction of Thursday's A-1 screw-up the editors missed (A-2). LOL.

More bad journalism

Cichowski is back on the Local front today with his second column on road projects, which somehow escaped his attention until last week (L-1).

In contrast to the millions of words The Record's editors commission on shopping malls and big retailers, a story on Small Business Saturday was written by a single reporter interviewing shoppers in one downtown, Englewood (L-3).

Sorry, Charlie, the wealthy Borg publishing family tells downtown merchants in Hackensack, Teaneck and other towns, if you don't advertise with us, you can go to hell when it comes time for news coverage.

Another Kelly turd

What would Sunday be without another column from the desperate Mike Kelly?

Today's Opinion front piece is Kelly's third attempt to link poor Richard Shoop of Teaneck to the mass shooting that killed 20 children and six adults in Newtown, Conn. (O-1).

Shoop, you'll recall, is the 20-year-old pizzeria worker who took advantage of the pathetic lack of security at Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus on Nov. 4, and committed suicide.

Before he shot himself in the head, he fired randomly, but wasn't aiming at shoppers.

Don't make Kelly's column the last thing you read in today's Sunday edition.

If you do, you won't be able to get the column photo and Kelly's shit-eating grin out of your mind.

Page 1 story hides elaborate Hackensack correction

The glass exterior of a 47-story residential tower overlooking the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee is nearing completion, above. The building as seen from Main Street, below. Some residents fear more traffic, though in a borough that already has nightmarish traffic, how will they tell?

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

A Page 1 story in The Record today exposes more payouts for unused time in Hackensack, but also hides an elaborate correction of Friday's front-page story on similar payments to the corrupt Ken Zisa, onetime police chief and state assemblyman.

And the dominant story on today's front page -- video frames of the man who committed suicide at Garden State Plaza in Paramus -- again ignores the irresponsible lack of security at the state's biggest shopping center.  

Cashing in

The Hackensack story reports more than 30 employees rushed to retire and cash out unused sick and vacation time as Governor Christie "tried to cap sick-leave pay for retiring public workers" (A-1).

But on the continuation page, Staff Writer Hannan Adely takes back Friday's front-page story, which claimed Zisa was paid twice in 2010 for unused time (A-6).

Now, Adely reports Zisa received $94,513 for unused sick days or $53,671 after taxes. On Friday, they were reported as separate payments.

Today's story contains new errors: 

That Zisa received the payment "just before his arrest on charges of insurance fraud," when Adely previously reported it was after his arrest at the end of April 2010; and that he is appealing his conviction on official misconduct charges, when he is appealing two convictions, one for official misconduct and another for fraud, as well as a 5-year prison sentence.

$2.4 million deal

The lawsuits against Zisa reported in today's story -- and the millions of dollars paid to settle them -- prompt long-suffering residents and taxpayers to wonder why the City Council didn't move to fire him years before his arrest.

On A-6, Adely reports the former girlfriend of then-Deputy Police Chief Frank Zisa Jr., the chief's brother, won a $2.4 million settlement from a lawsuit alleging Ken Zisa retaliated against her because she refused sexual advances by him and Frank Zisa Jr.

More A-1 errors

Also on Page 1 today, video frames of Richard Shoop, 20, an armed Teaneck man who entered Garden State Plaza on Nov. 4 to commit suicide, drive home the pathetic lack of security provided by the mall's Australian owners and Paramus police.

The Record has ignored that story, and today (Nov. 16) describes the events of Nov. 4 as "last week." 

Though that is technically correct, it is confusing and a more precise phrase, such as "12 days ago" would have been better.

The Woodland Park daily quotes police as saying Shoop "did not appear to be intent on killing anyone but himself and avoided confronting" officers, who arrived minutes after he fired random shots into an elevator door, the ceiling and signs.

Still, burned-out Staff Writer Mike Kelly distorted the incident in three columns, comparing Shoop to the gunmen at Columbine High School and in Newtown, Conn.

If police weren't summoned until shots were fired, does that mean no one was monitoring security cameras or that a man in black wearing a helmet and carrying a rifle didn't alarm guards who were?

Today's story and photo caption variously describes the part of the mall where Shoop's body was found as "a back hallway," "an area of catacomb-like hallways" and the "basement."

Where is Houlton?

The confusing time element and fuzzy reporting in today's story again dramatizes the incompetence of Production Editor Liz Houlton, who is paid a six-figure salary to supervise news editors, copy editors, copy desk supervisors and page proofers.

Their job is to act as a last line of defense against factual and grammatical errors in stories that are missed by the local assignment desk, notably Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza, who is running this farce in the unexplained absence of lifer Deirdre Sykes.

They seem incapable of catching even the most obvious errors, as today's Page 1 screw-ups and two more corrections on A-2 demonstrate.

Another story that exposes copy desk incompetence appears on L-5 today, where the headline suggests that only one taxicab operates in Paterson.