No charges filed in year-old Hackensack pedestrian death

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 crossing Jackson Avenue in Hackensack, above, only a few blocks from her apartment.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The death of a Hackensack pedestrian more than a year ago is being called a "tragic traffic accident."

"There is no basis for criminal charges," a spokeswoman for acting Bergen County Prosecutor Gurbir S. Grewal said today. 

Spokeswoman Maureen Parenta said a long investigation by the Union County Prosecutor's Office agreed with Hackensack police, who were the first to look into the death of Hue Dang, 64.

She was struck and fatally injured as she was walking in or near a crosswalk on Jackson Avenue and Kennedy Street, a couple of blocks from Route 80.

The driver, John Straniero, a detective sergeant in the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office, was on the way to his Wayne home.

Straniero, 50, retired last Nov. 1 after 27 years with the office.

The woman's family has filed a notice that it intends to sue Straniero.

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.

County lawman quits as pedestrian-death probe drags on

Hue D. Dang, 64, was walking in or near this Jackson Avenue crosswalk in Hackensack last March 9, when she was struck and fatally injured by an unmarked car driven by John C. Straniero, a detective sergeant in the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office. Hackensack police investigated, but brought no charges against him in her death. 

Dang was struck only blocks from her apartment on Hudson Street in Hackensack. This photo shows markings left by investigators, and the woman's blood staining the pavement, right. At the urging of Eye on The Record, the Union County Prosecutor's Office took up the investigation, which still is open.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Bergen County Prosecutor's Office detective sergeant whose car struck and fatally injured a Hackensack woman has retired.

John C. Straniero, then 49, apparently was driving to his home in Wayne last March 9, when he started to turn right on Jackson Avenue and Kennedy Street in Hackensack, near Route 80, and struck Hue D. Dang, 64.

The Vietnamese-American woman, who was carrying plastic grocery bags, was pronounced dead at a hospital less than an hour after the 4:45 p.m. accident.

After Hackensack police cleared Straniero of any wrongdoing, Eye on The Record contacted the state police and Attorney General's Office, which asked the Union County Prosecutor's Office to investigate further.

That probe is ongoing, a spokesman for the office said this morning, but he would not discuss why it is taking so long.

See: Union prosecutor to review Hackensack death

Single story

The Record published a single story about the accident on March 11, but Staff Writer Stafanie Dazio didn't mention the crosswalk or whether the woman was in it when she was hit.

When asked this morning, Maureen Parenta of the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office said Straniero had retired.

Parenta, the prosecutor's communication director, wasn't available later in the day to provide any details.

The victim's family has filed a notice that it intends to sue the detective in her death.

The report filed by Hackensack police shows the approximate location of the unmarked car and the woman after she was struck on Jackson Avenue and Kennedy Street. But the diagram is at variance with markings on the pavement made after the accident.

Local news?

Readers looking for local or even regional news on Page 1 of The Record strike out again.

Unless they're as consumed as reporters are with how Governor Christie will do at the Iowa Caucuses on Feb. 1, local readers threw away their money today.

The headline over Charles Stile's boring political column contains the phrase "turn silent," leading many readers to wonder when the burned-out reporter will do just that (A-1).

For the second day in a row, Local reads more like a police blotter, with a couple of court stories thrown in, than a section devoted to news of Bergen County towns. 

The lead story is about more gun violence in Paterson, and Bergen readers are cheated even more by six other Passaic County stories, both long and short (L-1, L-2, L-3 and L-6).

Ignored by the editors, enraged 100-year-old kills his wife

Jackson Avenue and Kennedy Street in Hackensack at 4:44 p.m. on Monday, one month after Hue D. Dang, 64, was fatally injured in or near the crosswalk by an unmarked car driven by Detective Sgt. John C. Straniero of the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office. After Hackensack police declined to file any charges, the investigation was taken over by the Union County Prosecutor's Office.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Can you "accuse" a dead man of homicide?

The brain-dead editors at The Record of Woodland Park say you can in the very first paragraph of today's report on a centenarian who killed his 88-year-old wife with an ax before committing suicide (A-1).

Even the headline on the Page 1 story is vague, referring to the killer, Michael Juskin of Elmwood Park, as being "at the center" of the case:

"100-year-old at the center of murder-suicide"

The headline should have said he killed his wife, Rosalia, with an ax, and then the sub-head could have mentioned he suffered from dementia.

A sidebar reviews similar cases in recent years, and concludes "the elderly population is often underserved by services for battered woman and overlooked by research on domestic violence" (A-6).

Gee. Shouldn't the editors of the Woodland Park daily admit how they also have ignored seniors with dementia and Alzheimer's disease for years, preferring to publish overwrought stories on children with autism?

Why 9 months?

At the center of today's rare all-New Jersey front page is a court photo of the sister and mother of Genesis Rincon, the 12-year-old who was slain in Paterson last July (A-1).

But the story on L-1 doesn't explain why the two defendants are being arraigned nine months after the fatal shooting.

Maybe it took that long for the accused killers' families to come up with the hefty retainer needed to land representation by attorneys Harvey Briete and Matthew Cavalier.

Judging from the photo on L-1, Briete's hourly rate apparently has to pay for suits that cost a couple of thousands of dollars each as well as hand-tied bow ties.

Briete also is given to hyperbole -- dismissing a plea bargain with a 40-year prison sentence for his 20-year-old client as a "life sentence," according to the paraphrase on L-1.

Another look

On Monday, I re-visited the T-intersection of Jackson Avenue and Kennedy Street in Hackensack, where Hue D. Dang, 64, a Vietnamese-American woman who lived a few blocks away, was struck and fatally injured by a car one month before.

I took a photo at 4:44 p.m., the time police said Dang was hit by Detective Sgt. John C. Straniero's unmarked car, which was turning right toward the Route 80 west ramp.

Hackensack police said they didn't know where Dang was standing when she was struck, and didn't mention the Jackson Avenue crosswalk to the reporter who wrote The Record's only story on the case, on March 11.

No charges filed

Police didn't file any charges against Straniero, 49, who lives in Wayne and works for the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office.

They did note "a large amount of sun glare from the west," but that shouldn't have obscured the view of Dang, who appeared to be in or near the Jackson Avenue crosswalk when she was hit.

Dang's feet landed in the crosswalk when she fell parallel to the passenger side of the car.

And, according to a neighborhood woman I spoke to on Monday, a plastic grocery bag she had been carrying landed near a wheel on the detective's silver Ford Crown Victoria.

The victim was taken to Hackensack University Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead less than an hour later.

The Union County Prosecutor's Office took over the investigation, and on March 31, a spokesman said I should check back in "several weeks."

Union prosecutor to review Hackensack pedestrian death

Hue D. Dang, 64, of Hackensack was walking in or near this Jackson Avenue crosswalk on March 9, when she was struck and fatally injured by an unmarked car driven by John C. Straniero, a detective sergeant in the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office. Hackensack police investigated, but brought no charges against him in her death.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The state Attorney General's Office has directed the Union County prosecutor to review a March 9 pedestrian fatality in Hackensack that saw no charges being filed against the driver, a detective in the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office.

Hue D. Dang, 64, a Vietnamese-American woman who lived a few blocks away on Hudson Street, was struck by an unmarked car as she crossed Jackson Avenue at Kennedy Street, carrying plastic grocery bags.

She was pronounced dead at Hackensack University Medical Center less than an hour after the 4:45 p.m. accident.

Hackensack police were quoted in The Record on March 11 as saying they didn't know where Dang was "standing" when she was hit and knocked to the ground by Detective Sgt. John C. Straniero, 49, of Wayne.

Eye on The Record asked the state police and state Attorney General's Office to look into the Hackensack investigation. 

Today, Regina Garb of Citizens Services and Relations in the Attorney General's Office said the matter has been referred to the Union County Prosecutor's Office, which has a fatal accident unit.

Today's paper

International stories dominate The Record's front page today, including one aimed at the thousands of Yemenites living in North Jersey (A-1).

Columnist Mike Kelly turns his shit-eating grin to "another fugitive," ignoring the thousands of Americans who have started traveling to the Caribbean's biggest island and enjoying Cuban music and food (A-1).

A big photo on Page 1 memorializes the 150 passengers aboard a doomed Germanwings jet, proving once again how budget travel can come back to bite you (A-1).

You know the newsroom is being run by the man who once edited the international edition of The New York Times when you find a North Jersey environmental story at the bottom of A-1 today.

Wake up, Marty! 

Editor Martin Gottlieb apparently didn't think a highly respected 92-year-old municipal judge is front-page news in a local newspaper (L-1).

Judge Richard Greenhalgh is retiring Tuesday after a remarkable 48 years on the bench in River Vale. 

Staff Writer Nicholas Pugliese doesn't explain how Greenhalgh escaped mandatory retirement ages so common in other jobs, including Superior Court.

For readers, Greenhalgh is refreshing -- unlike all those seniors The Record reports on from nursing homes, assisted living facilities and hospices.

Or, all of those confused drivers who are constantly crashing their cars into storefronts and being ridiculed in filler photos ordered by local Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza. 

And the judge is lucky he didn't go work for a company like North Jersey Media Group, which doesn't prize older employees.

More and more, readers have to conclude that Gottlieb's news judgment as editor of a North Jersey newspaper just sucks.

Wake up, Marty! You're not in Paris anymore.