Editor’s note: This section is based on facts provided to Pascack Press weekly by neighborhood police departments. Due to pending court appearances and other variations, the following information should be read in “press time” context.
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Park Ridge, New Jersey — A West Orange woman, 29, must answer to complaints of obstruction of justice, resisting arrest, driving while under the influence, refusal to submit to a breath test, and moving violations following a March 4 traffic stop shortly after 1 a.m.
In a four-page narrative, officers say the woman, driving a sport utility vehicle, was observed closely following an Uber car, shining her high beams at the driver, then cutting the driver off at a turn lane and continuing to maneuver to refuse to let her pass.
While delaying traffic, the defendant rolled down her window and shouted several times to the Uber driver, “Can I use your phone?”
At this time, the officer activated his emergency lights, positioned his car in the intersection of Park Avenue and Broadway, and instructed the defendant to make a right turn onto Park Avenue.
The officer made this order seven times, he said, but the woman “did not abide by my direction and began to drive in reverse.”
The officer left his car and approached the defendant on the driver side. He explained his reason for the stop and told her three more times to turn right onto Park and then into the first driveway on the right, which accesses the Wells Fargo lot.
“She immediately became agitated by my presence,” the report says, stating the driver claimed she was lost, unable to get directions because her phone was dead, and coming from the Edgewood Country Club in River Vale.
The officer requested another officer to respond, but the defendant sped off at high speed onto Park Avenue, through the red light at Park and Kinderkamack. The officer pursued, siren sounding, pacing her at 64 mph at the highest speed.
The woman stopped on Park Avenue near Homestead Place. The officer called in her registration and location, then approached the driver and ordered her to turn over her keys. The officer reports he made this instruction 10 times. She did not abide by the order. He asked for her credentials four times, again with her not complying.
“I expressed my concern about her reckless driving, which enraged [her] even more,” he wrote.
Two other officers arrived, one of whom asked the driver three times to turn off her vehicle. This too she disregarded.
The defendant announced she is a criminal justice major and that she knows her rights, but failed to cooperate with lawful orders given by sworn police officers, the report noted.
She requested to have a lieutenant respond and refused to answer any other questions or provide credentials to the officers. She was able to produce an expired insurance card. She left her car, not wearing shoes, to look for her license and registration. During this time she began to name call, use profane language, and use racist remarks.
“When [she] decided that finding her cell phone was more important than finding her credentials,” the report says, she was told to get back into her vehicle three times. She disregarded the orders and began walking away from the scene. She crossed Park Avenue to the sidewalk and continued onto a Park Avenue property’s front lawn. While chasing her, the officer told her not to continue to the property, and told her several times to stop.
Instead, she ran to the front door and began to knock and yell for help.
Three officers told her to place her hands behind her back to she could be placed under arrest. She said no and resisted compliance holds by tensing her muscles and flailing her arms. The officers eventually gained control of her and arrested her.
On the walk back to the patrol car she reportedly further resisted by flailing her body and dropping her weight to the ground.
As she yelled, officers smelled an alcoholic beverage on her breath. When asked about it, she said she had been to a bar mitzvah.
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Before placing her in the back seat of the car, she was told four times to relinquish her keys, which she disregarded. Police got the keys from her hands without injuries.
She was searched, with nothing found. Because she was combative, she was not secured with a seatbelt, for officers’ safety.
While on scene, the report reads, the defendant “continued to make known that all officers are white and she is black. She explained that she is ‘not OK’ with all officers being white men and called officers racial slurs.
While in the patrol car, the woman, who is described as having slender wrists, slipped her hands out of the cuffs with little effort, even on the device’s tightest fit. She was recuffed but did not slip out again.
A female officer, from Woodcliff Lake, was requested and briefed. The driver’s car was secured for towing.
During the ride to the police station, the woman continued to speak ill of the officers. She stated, “I can’t wait to bury this Glen Rock police station,” further showing her anger and confusion, the report says.
The woman kicked at the glass partition in the car and used racial insults against an officer trying to calm her down.”
At headquarters, she was handcuffed to a bench in the rear conference room. The smell of alcohol was more pronounced, her eyes were observed as watery and bloodshot, and she was heard slurring her words.
She was given basic field sobriety tests but could not keep her balance and did not comply with some directions. She claimed repeatedly that she is a yogi, and boasted of her physical abilities.
After failing the balancing portion of the tests she was taken back to the conference room and handcuffed to the bench.
She agreed to breath tests but did not cooperate. Tests two to five failed over insufficient volume achieved.
Asked again where he had been drinking, she said Florentine Gardens, which is in River Vale but at a different location than she previously reported. She said she had two glasses of champagne at the bar mitzvah.
At the medical screening she said she takes medication for depression but did not say what kind or how much.
She was given all her property back but refused to sign the form verifying this. She also was given her driving summonses.
Before she left at 4:30 a.m.—she called her mother and was picked up by another party—she demanded and was given the names and badge numbers of all officers involved.
She has a court date of April 18.