Shotgun standoff on Bloomfield ends peacefully
A potentially deadly situation ended peacefully on Sunday after a woman who told police she was being threatened with a shotgun vanished out the back window of an apartment on the 600 block of Bloomfield Street when officers stormed the residence. She then refused to cooperate with the investigation, according to a police report.
Around 6:45 a.m. police fielded three 911 calls from the woman, who police later identified as a alleged Brooklyn-based escort, claiming that she was being held at gunpoint by two men, according to the report. Six officers immediately responded to the scene and blockaded the third floor apartment with their weapons drawn. According to the report, officers heard two male voices inside, which went quiet when they began knocking.
After several orders to open the door, one man emerged from the apartment and surrendered, the report said. With police still outside the apartment, the man revealed that there were three guns in the apartment: a shotgun under the bed, a rifle in a case next to the bed, and a handgun on the dresser.
Police moved in and secured the apartment, but did not find the woman or the other man who was reportedly in the apartment. According to the report, the man who surrendered told officers that they’d escaped out the back window to the apartment.
Several guns were confiscated to ascertain their legality but also because the scene was judged to be unstable due to several empty alcohol and prescription medication bottles in the bedroom.
After the scene had been secured, officers were able to contact the woman, who only gave her first name as Mya, through the cell phone she had used to call 911. She refused to give any information about herself, but asked police whether they had found the guns in the apartment.
Police suspected that Mya is a sex worker because a Google search of her phone number led to a listing on an escort website, according to the report. The man in custody confirmed that a picture attached to the listing was of the woman who had been in his apartment.
Since Mya stopped answering phone calls from police, officers determined there wasn’t sufficient evidence to press any charges against the man in custody, though they will continue to investigate the weapons, the report said.
Allegedly lewd acts at skate park
Police charged a North Bergen man with two counts of sexual assault and two counts of endangering the welfare of a minor on Saturday after multiple witnesses accused him of allegedly masturbating in his car and on the sidewalk outside the Hoboken Skate Park on Sinatra Drive, according to a police report.
Police officers stationed at Sinatra Field on Saturday afternoon responded to the skate park after a jogger told them that she had seen a man masturbating in his silver sedan outside the park, said the report. When the officers arrived on the scene, they stopped a car fitting that description from hurriedly pulling out of an illegal parking space. After multiple witnesses said that the driver, Francisco Peraza-Morales, 30, was the alleged masturbator they’d seen in the car and on the sidewalk, police placed him under arrest.
Two fathers who were with their sons at the skate park said separately that they’d seen a Hispanic man taking photos of the park on his cell phone, the report said.
Peraza-Morales’ car was towed from the scene, said the report.
Six teens arrested for throwing bottles at mail carrier, others
Six teenagers enrolled in a local drug and alcohol rehabilitation program were charged on Tuesday with unlawful possession of a weapon and simple assault after they allegedly hurled glass bottles toward at least three pedestrians, including a U.S. Postal Service worker, a police report said.
Hoboken and New Jersey Transit police officers apprehended the teens, whose names were not released because they are juveniles, at the Second Street Light Rail station. According to police, all six of the teens, one of whom was female, ranged from 15 to 17 years of age and were from Jersey City. One of the teens attends Hoboken High School, while the rest attend various Jersey City schools, the report said. All six were scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday morning.
Officers responded just before 1 p.m. on Tuesday to reports of the teenagers allegedly throwing beer bottles at the intersection of First and Monroe Streets, according to the report, and were met by a motorist at the scene who said the teens had thrown bottles at his car as he drove past.
Around that time a 911 call advised police that the teens were headed toward the Light Rail station, where they were arrested by transit police. The mail carrier, who was located and transported to the train station, positively identified each teen as having thrown bottles at her on Monroe Street, said the report.
None of the victims were injured in the alleged attacks. The parents and schools of the teenagers were notified. One of the teens, who was allegedly carrying a Mason jar containing six bags of marijuana, was also charged with possession of a controlled substance and possession within 500 feet of a park.
Stevens student allegedly assaulted by fake do-gooders
A student at the Stevens Institute of Technology who got lost in northwest Hoboken early Sunday morning was brutally assaulted in a car by two men who had offered to drive him home, according to a police report.
The male student, who lives in the Heights neighborhood of Jersey City, got off the Light Rail at the Ninth Street Station just after 3 a.m. on Sunday, but found that he couldn’t take the elevator up the cliffs toward his house because it was out of service.
According to the report, he began to walk east on Eighth Street and was approached by two Hispanic men in a white car when he was hailing a cab. The student apparently confirmed that the men did not work for a taxi service, but he got into their car anyway when they said they would help him get home, the report said.
When the student entered the car’s back seat, he was joined by one of the men, who asked how much money he was carrying. When he replied that he only had three dollars and asked to go to an ATM, the man allegedly began to beat him, said the report. They took his iPhone 5S, as well as his wallet, which contained two credit cards, a debit card, an insurance card and driver’s license.
They eventually let him out of the car at the Academy Bus Station on the corner of Fifteenth and Jefferson streets, where he contacted police. The student was then transported to Hoboken University Medical Center for treatment to several severe lacerations on his face and head.
The police report noted that the Academy terminal is equipped with several security cameras, and that the company would be turning the tapes over to the department within a week.