Only stronger penalties will stop slaughter of pedestrians

On March 9, 2015, an unmarked Ford Crown Victoria, driven by a detective sergeant for the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office, struck and fatally injured Hue Dang, 64, a Vietnamese-American woman who was carrying plastic grocery bags as she walked toward her Hackensack apartment a couple of blocks away from this intersection.

Hackensack police filed no charges against the driver, John Straniero of Wayne, even though their official report showed Dang was struck when she was walking in or near the crosswalk on Jackson Avenue and Kennedy Street, not far from Route 80.

On the evening of the accident, the woman's blood stained the pavement, above. She died on the way to the hospital. Nearly a year later, the Union County Prosecutor's Office continues to investigate. As for Straniero, 49, he retired last Nov. 1, apparently to protect his pension in the event any charges are filed against him. Dang's relatives have filed a notice they will be naming him in a wrongful death suit.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Editor Deirdre Sykes of The Record is really milking the death of two teens mowed down by an out-of-control car for all its worth today.

Page 1 carries a heart-tugging headline:

Inseparable friends,

unspeakable agony

And right under the big, black type is a photo of the grief-stricken mother, her mouth open in a heart-wrenching wail.

The crash Saturday night in North Bergen occurred roughly 2 miles from where a 7-year-old girl "lost her life" in a hit-run crash in West New York, The Record says (A-1).

The car that killed two 17-year-olds, Noel Herrera  of Cliffside Park and his best friend, Bryan Rodriguez of Union City, "plowed into them after jumping a curb ... and ripping through a metal fence."

Although three reporters worked on the story, it is missing any detail of whether the driver was speeding, racing another car or collided with another vehicle -- typical of The Record's pathetically poor accident reporting.

Nor can readers expect the editors of the Woodland Park daily to call for stiffer penalties against drivers in pedestrian deaths, likely the only way to cut down on the slaughter nearly six years after a revised crosswalk law took effect.

Driver doing 74 mph

Today, NorthJersey.com reports the unnamed driver charged in the deaths of the two teens "may have been traveling 74 miles an hour," nearly three times the speed limit.

Staff Writer John Cichowski has reported on the revised crosswalk law and pedestrian deaths in many of his Road Warrior columns.

But he also has quoted drivers saying they'd like to run down jaywalkers.

He's demonized red-light cameras, which deter speeders who run lights and injure or kill others, and virtually ignored stop-sign runners.

Sloppy reporting

The Record's stories on pedestrian deaths often omit whether a pedestrian was walking in a crosswalk when hit or even if there is a crosswalk at the intersection.

That was the case with Staff Writer Stefanie Dazio's March 11, 2015, story on the death of Hue Dang, 64, who was struck and fatally injured two days earlier at Jackson Avenue and Kennedy Street in Hackensack.

The crosswalk was never mentioned, but a police captain was quoted as saying, "It's unclear where Dang was standing" when she was struck.

That was the first and last story about the Vietnamese-American woman's death at the hands of a detective sergeant for the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office.

Sloppy editing

Sykes, who was in charge of the local-news section at the time, completely missed the lack of reporting on whether Dang was in or near the crosswalk when she was run down by John Straniero.

And the paper never did a follow-up, even when the investigation was transferred to the Union County Prosecutor's Office or when the detective retired last Nov. 1.

Sykes, Cichowski and other newsroom staffers at The Record treated the Vietnamese-American woman, who once worked as a supermarket cashier, as if she was so much road kill.

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.

Cops won't release fatality report without OPRA request

Hue Dang, 64, the woman killed crossing the street in Hackensack on March 9, lived alone in an apartment at 340 Hudson St., above and below, only a few blocks away from where she was fatally injured by an unmarked car. The driver, Detective Sgt. John Straniero of the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office, has not been charged in her death.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Hackensack police asked Eye on The Record to file an Open Public Records Act Request Form to obtain the report on the accident that took the life of Hue Dang, 64, who lived alone in a nearby apartment.

The woman was carrying plastic grocery bags and crossing the street at Jackson Avenue and Kennedy Street about 4:45 p.m. March 9 when she was struck by an unmarked lawman's car.

Her blood stained the pavement near the Jackson Avenue crosswalk, and the car's right rear tire came to rest in the crosswalk.

Police said Bergen County prosecutor's Detective Sgt. John Straniero, 49, of Wayne was making a right turn onto Kennedy, which leads to the entrance ramp for Route 80 west, when his car struck the woman.

She died less than a hour later at Hackensack University Medical Center. 

Straniero hasn't been charged in her death.

No witnesses?

Hackensack police Capt. Nicole Foley was quoted by The Record last Wedneday as saying "it's unclear where Dang was standing," and that "there were no witnesses," even though Jackson Avenue and Kennedy Street are usually full of rush-hour traffic at that time of the day.

The Record's story didn't mention the Jackson Avenue crosswalk, and the reporter apparently never asked Foley if the pedestrian was in it.

The Woodland Park daily hasn't done a follow.

Today's paper

One look at today's Page 1 headlines tells readers Editor Martin Gottlieb didn't bother finding any real news in North Jersey.

"Haggling ahead for a divided Isreal" bores even Jewish readers.

The photo on the re-opening of the Oradell Animal Hospital in Paramus is a non-event for the vast majority of humans in North Jersey.

"Tax breaks being tightened for farms" is another snoozer.

"New furor over tests" is of absolutely no interest to the baby boomers who make up the majority of the readership and whose children are in college or already working

Finally, who the hell is "Borland"?

College cops

The editors let slide hundreds of errors in Road Warrior columns, but take the trouble to correct a story on Monday's L-1 and give credit to Montclair State cops for the arrest of a "driver in the drill" held at the college (A-2).

PABT correction

Back-pedaling furiously, Staff Writer Christopher Maag now reports the Port Authority's chairman believes selling or leasing bi-state agency real estate could help finance a new midtown Manhattan bus terminal (A-3).

And Maag found a board member who said the $7.5 billion to $10.5 billion cost reported on Tuesday's Page 1 was exaggerated, and the actual cost of the building would be $4 billion.

We're sick of reading about cops

The Record reports today that new residential buildings in Fort Lee would attract more cars to the borough's already congested streets and result in "holdups."

Manhattan. Paris. Life has been good for veteran journalist Marty Gottlieb, who took over as editor of The Record a little over a month ago.

But how familiar is he with North Jersey and how the Woodland Park daily has covered local news, including Hackensack, where it prospered for more than 110 years before pulling up stakes?

Growing diversity in North Jersey police departments has been evident long before today's Page 1 trend piece, and the focus on the Hackensack force merely piles on numerous stories about the suspended chief in the past two years -- often to the exclusion of other news.

Although it's good to read a positive story about Hackensack cops, the focus is too narrow. Communities have diversified other workers, including health inspectors.  Where has head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes been?

Skeleton edition

OK. It's Monday, so how much can you expect from The Record's skeleton staff?

There is a second trend story -- about the risks crossing guards face -- but the top of the page is all about the Oscars and Governor Christie's wisdom on the Three Stooges who are vying for the GOP presidential nomination.

Christie says he would never exit gracefully and become Mitt Romney's vice president, but instead seek reelection next year. 

Good luck. Now that he's protected millionaires from tax increases and failed to keep his original campaign promise to cut property taxes for the middle class, it will be payback time.

French influence

It's hard to understand why Gottlieb held the front page for a big photo of Jean Dujardin, who won the Oscar for best actor, under the trite "SILENCE IS GOLDEN" heading. 

After sitting through hours of boring acceptance speeches Sunday night or going to sleep before the ceremony was over, is that really what readers want to see on the front page of their local paper?

Cars still popular


On the front of the Local news section, Sykes delivers breaking news -- if a developer builds two 47-story residential towers in Fort Lee, people moving in will bring their cars with them (L-1).

And if you believe the second paragraph, crime will follow:

 "Drivers ... would experience more holdups [my italics] unless traffic lights are installed and the timing on some light signals are changed, the study suggested."

On L-3, a story about a celebration by the 35 Plaza shopping center on Route 4 has many readers wondering why Sykes has never assigned stories on how downtowns in Hackensack, Englewood and Teaneck have weathered the recession.

Stale obit filler

Sykes apparently had no local news for L-5 today and decided to plug the hole with one of the longest wire-service obituaries I've ever seen, filling two full columns. Who died? 

Anita Bryant's former husband -- a month ago.

Correction needed

I called Picnic Garden in Englewood Cliffs today after reading Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung's Sunday column, which reported the expensive Korean buffet "offers about a dozen varieties of raw, marinated meats ... and seafood that you ... grill at your table."

I was told seafood -- shrimp, crab and squid -- is available only at dinner for from $26.95 (Monday to Thursday) to $29.95 per adult and $13 for children.

That means the family of four adults and three children shown in an F-6 photo would pay $146.80 for dinner before tax and tip.

Picnic Garden isn't the "good value" Ung claims, especially if you don't eat meat.

How to ruin the front page

Image via Wikipedia

The Dakota as seen from Strawberry Fields in Manhattan's Central Park.

Any reporter knows how lucky The Record's Mike Kelly was in finding a North Jersey connection for his story on the 30th anniversary of John Lennon's death in Manhattan. Then, the veteran journalist loses readers in just his second paragraph on Page 1 of the Woodland Park daily -- as he desperately tries to craft an introduction that will hook them.

That's Kelly big flaw. He can't write it straight and allow the power of the event to come through. He has to push around words, and in the process, his awkward, occasionally inaccurate sentences stun readers with their stupidity.

On his assignment Wednesday, he encountered Bill Purdy, a former Passaic County assistant prosecutor who specialized in homicide cases, so he reports in his first paragraph that Purdy "made his way to an old murder scene." Interesting, even if Kelly is unclear on whether the onetime prosecutor went to the Dakota, where Lennon was shot dead, or to Central Park. 

Then, Kelly blows it:

"He [Purdy] didn't carry his prosecutor's tools, though -- no handcuffs or law books or subpoenas. Purdy carried his guitar."

Reporting is laughable

Can you hear lawyers and detectives guffawing in North Jersey prosecutor's offices? Prosecutors don't carry handcuffs. And they wouldn't bring their heavy law books with them. It's also unlikely they would bring a subpoena to a murder scene. Who would a prosecutor serve -- the body?

Where was Kelly's assignment editor or the news copy editor on weeding out this laughably inaccurate copy?

The headlines were a puzzle, too, but at least they got me into the story. But Kelly stopped me cold. If he was so inaccurate there, where else did he err? Quotes, observations, conclusions?

Editor Francis Scandale allowed Kelly and Road Warrior John Cichowski to continue as columnists, but got rid of the former Hackensack daily's only Hispanic and only black columnists, and its only female news columnist. What a great editor he's been.

List all cast members

The lead story on A-1 -- about the Democratic-controlled Bergen County Freeholder Board bailing out bergenPAC in Englewood -- makes no mention of the role of Frank Huttle III, a lawyer who now is mayor of that city, in reopening the John Harms Theater, the performance venue. 

Huttle, listed as founder on the bergenPac Web site, is married to Assemblywoman Valerie Vaineri, a former Democratic freeholder in Bergen County.

News about police

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section has another L-1 story on the Hackensack police -- the best-covered police department in North Jersey, though Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado keeps residents in the dark on just about every other city agency.

The Local section is filled with police, accident and court news, as is becoming commonplace. An L-1 story on a plea by an ex-councilwoman doesn't say she appeared in state Superior Court.

Kibret Markos, the reporter covering the courts, again fails to include any information on how much of $1.5 million awarded to an Oakland woman injured in a three-car pileup might be going to the lawyer (L-3). 

Also on L-3, you'll find a gripping story on leaf removal in Paramus.

We want more New Jersey news

Image by Katchooo via Flickr

Even if the editors of The Record of Woodland Park try to supply the local news readers want, they can't inspire their staff to report and write it. So they're stuck covering half of the front page today with international news, more of which appears inside. The reliance on international news tells you the editors are just desperate to fill space.


Sure, there are a lot of legitimate questions about Israel's response to a protest flotilla headed for the Gaza Strip, but the former Hackensack daily should devote its energy to improving the coverage of local, North Jersey and state news, especially the state budget crisis, and stop giving a pass to Governor Christie, who has mounted an unprecedented attack on the middle class.


The Page 1 story on DuPont hiding the danger of toxic solvents in groundwater could have been tied to the oil-well disaster in the Gulf, but wasn't. Even though the gushing oil hasn't been stopped, the editors have demoted the BP story to Page A-8. Readers are still waiting for the editorial condemning the company's incompetence and the failure of government regulation -- emotions that have been expressed for a couple of weeks on TV news.


Local has another long, detailed, breathless story about disciplinary hearings for Hackensack police officers, but nothing about the proposed city budget and tax hike. Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado apparently has been ordered by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes to ignore any Hackensack news not involving the Police Department or suspended Chief Ken Zisa.


I applaud Better Living for its profile of North Jersey's Fossil Farms, which has supplied naturally raised meat and poultry to restaurants since 1997, including the ostrich and bison burgers served by Fuddruckers. But food writers should have been telling us all along in their reviews which restaurants serve naturally raised food, and it would be helpful to many readers if the paper wrote about makets big and small that sell antibiotic- and hormone-free meat and poultry.

Oh, that's not news

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It's 2010, and Englewood's elementary and middle schools are segregated. "Oh, that's not news," head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes says between shrieks of laughter rolling across the Woodland Park newsroom. Downtown traffic often is nightmarish, because the city has been glacially slow about installing turn lanes. "Oh, that's not news," Sykes says. An open-air police firing range rudely awakens hundreds of residents. "Oh, that's not news."


The only stories about the city's hard-working, God-fearing Jamaican community that appear in The Record are the occasional arrest or shooting. "Oh, that's not news," says Sykes, who has eaten her fair share of rum cakes from a Jamaican takeout shop on Palisade Avenue.


Two of the sub-editors working for Sykes once were assigned to cover Englewood as reporters. Dan Sforza broke no new ground and Christina Joseph apparently didn't know the city police use an open-air firing range, because she failed to notice that a round-up on such ranges that she was editing had completely omitted Englewood (map).


So, what is news in Englewood? Well, it's right there -- all over A-1 and L-1 today. Staff Writer Giovanna Fabiano emerged from her journalistic hibernation long enough to report that a black bear spent a pleasant three days in the city before its capture on Tuesday. It's her first story about Englewood since April 22.


I lived in Englewood until 2007, and over the years saw a buck and doe, and wild turkey in the city, probably from the Palisades. They were enjoying the verdant East Hill estates. Was that front-page news? I didn't think so.


Englwood is one of the most diverse communities in Bergen County and a good reporter could probably write three stories a week about it. Now, readers get three stories a month, if that. Teaneck and Hackensack are no better off.


Today's A-1 story about lawsuits against suspended Police Chief Ken Zisa is yet another example of how the Police Department is just about the only news Hackensack readers get from Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado -- apparently under orders from Sykes.


Why this story is on the front page is a puzzle in view of how the paper has abandoned and ignored the city where it was founded, and Alvarado's conclusions are arguable.


Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg, North Jersey Media Group chairman and onetime publisher of The Record, has lived on Englewood's East Hill for decades, but has he or his newspaper ever done anything to improve life for all of its residents? Mac sent his spoiled children, Jennifer and Stephen, to private schools, such as the two in Englewood attended by most of the city's white kids, to the detriment of the public schools. Mac has also opposed the expansion of a Jewish congregation that bought a house on his block.


In the past, the paper's Englewood reporters have largely focused on integration efforts at Dwight Morrow High School, while ignoring the elementary and middle schools. In fact, a Sept. 20, 2008, editorial praising the high school for integration and academics completely ignored continuing segregation in the lower grades.



"Oh, that's not news."

Monsy Alvarado's new burden

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For about two years, Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado was sidelined to work on the so-called investigation of Michael Mordaga, the well-regarded Hackensack detective who went on to become chief of detectives for the Bergen County prosecutor.

A single story, with the bylines of Alvarado and other staffers, appeared Dec. 16. It not only wasn't good enough for Page 1 of The Record of Woodland Park, but the reporters had to resort to guilt by association to get it published at all. Mordaga's name didn't even appear in the lead paragraph and his alleged conflict had ended in February 2007.

Now, it seems, Alvarado has a new burden from the head of the local news assignment desk, Deirdre "Laughs A Lot" Sykes, who somehow kept her job even after pursuing the vendetta against Mordaga for nearly three years, wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars in staff salaries. Sykes' pal, Jean Rimbach, the lead reporter on the Mordaga project, had not had a byline for two years.

Alvarado's new assignment from Sykes, it seems, is covering the lawsuits filed against Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa and the disciplinary hearings of officers who have dared to challenge their boss. In the process, she has ignored  just about all the other news about Hackensack, where the paper was founded in 1895 and where it prospered for more than 110 years. On at least two occasions in the past 18 months, her byline has not appeared for more than a month at a time.

Today, Alvarado reports, an attorney for one of the officers has asked the county prosecutor to investigate Zisa. Alvarado apparently has never asked the mayor or City Council why they haven't suspended Zisa or taken any other action in the many months since the suits were filed, including allegations he used officers to take care of private matters. Maybe bulldog Sykes picked the wrong target for her so-called investigation. Or was Mordaga just another laughing matter? Does Publisher Stephen A. Borg have anything to say about this?


The Zisa story leads Local today, but you'll also find a superficial story on downtown improvement districts by Staff Writer Karen Sudol, who ignores Hackensack altogether, not even reporting the reason the head of that district was fired last June. She also ignores the closing of several restaurants in Englewood's district, including Panera Bread and Cosi.

The front page today is dominated by Teaneck reporter Joseph Ax's long piece under the headline, "Haiti's long road." He spent maybe a week in Haiti in late January and early February, but Local hasn't  had a Teaneck story since Jan. 23. So, it's "Teaneck's long road."

You'll find more reporting exploits in Opinion, where Columnist Jersey Mike Kelly boasts of all the risks he took when he covered 9/11. His many columns since then have been mostly covering his ass.

Back to journalism as usual

The Record today returned to journalism as usual in its local news coverage of Hackensack. For residents who saw a brief story about a food drive by the Police Department yesterday -- breaking a35-day news dry spell -- the only Hackensack news today is an eight-paragraph story and photo of  an apartment fire. 

That's not the kind of news me and tens of thousands of other residents want from the former Hackensack daily.  

Monsy Alvarado, the Hackensack reporter, has a byline today on a story about alleged thefts by an ex-fire chief in Lodi. The headline says "up to $75,000," but the story says "believed to be under $75,000."

I haven't seen anything in The Record about the new homeless shelter next to the county jail in Hackensack. The building appears to be complete and when I drove by there yesterday, I saw four or five people who might be homeless lounging on sun-splashed benches and what looked like a loading dock. Yellow, plastic tape blocked a driveway to the parking lot, which was empty, though a few weeks ago, it was full.

On another local story, which is promoted on Page 1 and played on the Local section front, I don't recall seeing a story about the murder of a soldier from Teaneck on Nov. 6. The husband, from Englewood, apparently committed suicide. This story reports on the soldier's funeral today.

On Page L-2, "daily education coverage" today includes a look at the Ringwood school system. In the more than two years and three months I have lived in Hackensack, I can't recall any stories about the school system my 12-year-old son attends.


There are also stories from Pequannock, Wanaque and Woodland Park, the new home of The Record and the Borg family's privately held North Jersey Media Group.