Strange questions for police
A neighborly dispute almost turned ugly when a man allegedly brandished a baseball bat and then a long dagger, police said.
A man and his girlfriend came home to their apartment on Willow Avenue on Saturday, Feb. 13 at 2:39 a.m., and were soon met with a banging at their door.
Checking through the peephole, they said they saw a downstairs neighbor, David DeJesus, 62, Hoboken, allegedly banging on their door with a baseball bat, they told police.
The boyfriend opened the door and took the bat from DeJesus. He asked DeJesus why he was banging on his door, but DeJesus simply ran back to his apartment. While the door was open, a small dog owned by the couple also ran downstairs.
The girlfriend went down to retrieve the dog, but saw DeJesus at the door of his apartment allegedly wielding a long knife.
The man pulled his girlfriend up the stairs to safety and immediately called police.
When police arrived, officers said they tried to speak with DeJesus, but he was out of breath, struggling with his speech. He declined medical attention. DeJesus told police the couple upstairs was being loud and he went up to speak with them.
He told police he brought a baseball bat with him, but denied wielding a knife.
Police said DeJesus was acting strange and posing weird questions, like asking officers if they wanted to see his pet hermit crab and turtle.
Asked again about the knife, DeJesus allegedly then told police that he had the knife in question and wanted to turn it over. Police said the knife matched the description given by the couple.
After arresting DeJesus and charging him with five weapons and terroristic threat offenses, police turned him over to Hoboken University Medical Center for psychological evaluation.
The dog was not harmed.
Three people and some pot
Police responding to a noise violation on Saturday, Feb. 13 found a man and two women partying in a Jefferson Street apartment, according to reports.
Police located the origin of the noise and knocked on the door. When James Dooley, 30, Hoboken, opened the door, police could see a cloud of smoke and could smell marijuana, according to the police report.
Police said that as Dooley retrieved his identification, police could see marijuana sitting on the coffee table. Dooley told police the marijuana was his, but said he was not in possession of any other drugs, police said.
Police placed Dooley under arrest, and they allegedly found a green half-pill of ecstasy in his pocket at headquarters.
He was charged with possession, use, and being under the influence of a controlled dangerous substance.
Ski masks and handguns
Two men where allegedly held up by a pair of ski mask-wearing robbers carrying sliver handguns at 320 Marshall Drive around 2 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 14.
One of the two victims reported the incident to police two days later and said the robbers took his wallet with $198 and several identification items: his state ID card, work ID card, Housing Authority door card, Social Security card, and birth certificate.
When asked why he didn’t immediately report the stick-up, the man told police he had been drinking that night.
He said the two robbers were black males wearing dark clothes and ski masks, 5 ft. 7 in. and 5 ft. 8 in. in height.
The victim said the masked men jumped out of a vehicle, but could not describe the vehicle to police.
The slow getaway
A group of SUVs were stolen from a Hoboken lot last week, but authorities said the vehicles were locked in “transport” mode and could only reach a top speed of 25 miles per hour after they were swiped.
An Academy Bus employee who noticed a busted open gate on a Manhattan Auto Group car lot, 700 Observer Hwy., called police just after 6 a.m. on Monday, Feb. 15.
Police found that the gate’s chain had been cut and a portion of the perimeter fence had been knocked down. They also found a Range Rover Sport with front end damage idling by the entrance.
The operations manager for Manhattan Auto Group arrived at the scene and told police seven 2010 Range Rover Sports were taken. He said the vehicles were in “transport” mode and could only travel between 15 and 25 miles per hour.
He told police the total value of the heist was roughly $420,000.
A security guard told police he checked the lot at 5 a.m. and found nothing out of the ordinary. A security camera had stopped working at 9 p.m. the night prior to the heist, he told police.
Police recovered the vehicles in Newark days later, and have submitted evidence to the state crime lab for processing. No suspects have been charged yet.