High-profile fugitives in Jersey City can bet that the Jersey City Police Department’s Criminal Warrants Unit will not rest until the “bad guys are locked up and the victims’ family have closure,” according to unit commander Sgt. Eddie Carattini.
“We have pride in what we do and we aim to finish all our assignments,” Carattini said last week during an interview.
Located at the police department’s East Precinct on 207 Seventh St., the four-person unit has been hard at work this year. So far in 2002, they have arrested a nanny from New York City who allegedly abused two Jersey City babies, apprehended an alleged child molester whom they say was harassing children at Liberty Science Center, and collaborated on the arrests of 62 people wanted by county, state, and federal agencies for outstanding warrants.
The unit receives all their cases from the central office. Once the reports reach the unit, Carattini looks through the reports and prioritizes the most important ones. The reports are then delegated to the staff. Each detective reads up on the fugitive’s background, and begins to hunt down the wanted individuals.
The unit may go to the alleged criminal’s residence, talk to family members, or go undercover in neighborhoods in search of their suspects.
An average apprehension may take a day or two, while some can take a few weeks.
Once fugitives are captured, they are processed at the unit’s office, then sent over to the Criminal Investigation Unit for further questioning. Finally, the arrested individuals are taken to the county’s judicial court to be tried for their crimes, Carattini said.
Dets. Jose “Ollie” Alvarez, Carlos Hernandez, and Abad Perez are Carattini’s right-arm men who each have almost two decades of policing experience in Jersey City. Carattini has 22 years of experience.
In October, Carattini recruited Alvarez and Hernandez, and just a month ago Perez joined the unit.
They are the only all-Hispanic unit within the city’s police department. Alvarez, Carattini and Perez are Puerto Rican, and Hernandez is Honduran. Being bilingual allows them to interact and work better with the large Hispanic population in the city, they say.
“When you speak somebody’s native language, you win their trust,” Carattini said. “Many times we are able to go further with our investigations because of our ethnic backgrounds.”
Last week, during the early morning hours of a regular workday, Carattini paced around his unit’s small corner office on the third floor of the precinct. He was on the phone with a person regarding an investigation. Loud, assertive and demanding, Carattini emphasizes professionalism from his staff at all times, but he also stresses compassion and understanding for residents involved in parking and moving, and other non-aggressive, violations.
“There’s a way to deal with the community,” Carattini said. “We need to be a little more understanding and use common sense.”
According to JCPD Deputy Director Edgar Martinez, Carattini has been honored by President George W. Bush, top state police officials, and the city for his outstanding efforts.
“He is a person who will give you 110 percent,” Martinez said.
A force that looks like the city
Mayor Glenn Cunningham, Carattini’s former colleague, said he is determined to form a police force that would represent the makeup of the city. The city has about a dozen African-American and Hispanic police supervisors out of 84 supervisors on the force.
Martinez said the Criminal Warrants Unit is a step in the right direction toward hiring minorities. “We have an aggressive recruiting campaign to hire more minorities,” Martinez said. “Our focus is to ensure that police represent the community.”
The Puerto Rican Association Community Organization (PACO), a non-profit agency in the city, has recruited minorities and offered them training programs so they can score high on the prerequisite exam to become a police officer.
PACO Director Eliu Rivera, a critic of the force’s lack of ethnic diversity, is happy with the mayor’s initiative, he said. But, he added, work still needs to be done for more minorities to be in police uniforms.
“We are doing what we can to ensure there is a fair representation of the community in the police department,” he said.
To cope with the demands of their jobs, which oftentimes put their lives at risk when they go on assignments to hunt down criminals, Carattini and his unit maintain a fun and friendly atmosphere in the office.
“We are like brothers,” Hernandez said. “We have known each other before, so it is great to be together in the same unit.”
Posted on the wall, behind Carattini’s desk and across from Hernandez’s, is a sign that reads: “Never give up.” It is the common sentiment in the unit and the mantra for Carattini and the detectives, which bonds them.
“That is right, we never give up,” Carattini said. “We don’t know what’s behind a door when we track somebody down, so we do as much investigating as we can to protect the people and ourselves.”