answer to pezzolla

[Guest Guest]

why is it whenever i read your column, there is a 50/50 shot of you complaining about a parking ticket...Once again you chose your column to bring up meter tickets, when the real story was the tragic events that unfolded on kearny avenue.. Nobody cares that you get parking meter tickets, we all get them, we all pay them...we don't need to hear you crying about them..

How you can say there is a lack of police officers on kearny ave is beyond me. There is always a police presence on kearny avenue. In one sentence you say there is not a police presence, then in the second you say the police immediately give you a ticket when your meter is up.. So which is it? The facts are: the kearny police do not give you meter tickets. The parking authority officers give you the tickets..Going by your thought process, you want 100 police officers on kearny avenue walking around, but they can't give tickets? ok so if they can't write tickets, then i guess they will just hangout and talk, oh wait, cops can't talk or get coffee or eat dinner, only your allowed those things..

There was a murder in broad daylight right across from town hall. How in the world can you possibly make the argument that having more police on kearny avenue would have stopped this horrible crime? You have not given any thoughts or ideas on how to change the situation, you only complain. You want a larger presence on the avenue? tell the mayor and council to higher 30 more police officers..then you will see police everywhere..(which you will then complain about)

Finally, you ask why these SUSPICIOUS people weren't stopped by the kearny police before they committed this horrible crime.

Define suspicious, or maybe the kearny police department should just randomly stop everyone they see so the town could go bankrupt from all the lawsuits..you can't have it both ways.

anything less then having a officer posted inside that store wouldn't have stopped that crim. And we can't put police in every store on the avenue. You want to know why the two men weren't stopped as they walked down kearny avenue at around 830 in the morning? I think you need to stop watching television shows and wake up. in the real world bad guys look like everyone else.

if you want to feel safer, call the mayor and demand he hire more police...and im not talking about 5 more..you need 30 to see the impact..if you can come up with a better idea, then write about it, or we could all just wait for the next tragedy to happen so you can do your usual bash the kearny police department rant.

[Guest guest]

Many, many good points, Answer. Lisa should not be allowed near a computer, never mind have the ability to publish her opinions in a newspaper. And where does she live to have such strong opinions on Kearny? However, reading the Observer for news and intelligent editorials is like drinking non-alcoholic beer. You're going thru the motions but getting none of the good stuff out of it. Can't wait to see the Observer's web site to update to see how they covered the murder. Here's to hoping for another Celeste Regal journalistic masterpiece.

[Guest Guest]

I couldn't agree more. She uses a tragedy to complain about parking tickets and to bash thr police department. I'm

no expert in policing but I would guess that there is no way that could have been prevented.

As for her wanting the police to stop suspicious people. What the hell does that mean? Sounds like she's

racist as well.

[Guest guest]

Where are the cops?

By Lisa Pezzolla

Tuesday morning as my editor was making her way into the office around 9 a.m. she knew there was a serious situation at hand as police vehicles were speeding up Midland Avenue past the Observer into the heart of town. She ran into the office and phoned Kearny police to find out there was a robbery in the vicinity of Town Hall, and shots were fired. She proceeded to the scene, never anticipating what she was soon to find out – that Xavier Egoavil had died at his business from gunshot wounds fired one of the robbers.

Word was passing through town quickly that the robber shot the storeowner’s son and he died at the scene of the crime. Our phone was ringing with many questions and at the time we were unaware of what was going and still waiting for an update on the situation. All we knew at the time that the crime took place at Rachel Jewelers. The sad news was rapidly being conveyed by storeowners who were now frightened to be alone in their stores. The Peruvian community joined to support the family.

The number one question that many folks are talking about is the lack of officers on the beat on Kearny Avenue. Even though, over the years, their presence on bicycles has been noted, everyone is questioning whether the businesses on the Avenue are protected during the day and the night.

From the reality of the situation on Tuesday, with an armed robbery in broad daylight, it seems that we are not protected and we are not safe. Now many residents want to know the answer as to why, when two seconds off the parking meters are met with a ticket all across town, why were the suspicious characters not noticed and where were police patrols before the tragic event? The town can keep our meters filled by the threat of an immediate ticket but it does not find it necessary to have enough policemen employed to protect our streets.

Truly amazing. The Observer had an opportunity to do a professional job of covering the biggest story of the decade and they not only screwed it up but managed to criticize the folks who probably haven't gotten any sleep trying to solve this shocking murder.

The Observer should have done the following.

Front page: Wanted [sketch of gunman] reference to page 3

Page 3: Story (not editorial) on the facts about the murder.

Page 5: Story about the victim and his family how wonderful he was and the communities reaction.

Editorial Page: We need your help story.

Middle of newspaper: Fold out Wanted Picture so folks could post it in their stores, homes, local establishments.

The Observer needs to be sold and purchased by someone who can rededicate themselves to running a newspaper.

Can an English teacher please correct the above editorial and parse the sentences out and show the publisher the various errors in composition. I can't do it. It is too bad. Maybe it could be a class exercise.

[Guest Guest]

I couldn't agree more. She uses a tragedy to complain about parking tickets and to bash thr police department. I'm

no expert in policing but I would guess that there is no way that could have been prevented.

As for her wanting the police to stop suspicious people. What the hell does that mean? Sounds like she's

racist as well.

There's no way it could've been prevented because Kearny surrendered years ago.

[Guest Guest]

Lisa's stuff was MUCH better when she didn't write it herself. Maybe she should go back to plagerizing??

[Guest Observer Fact Checker]

"Surveillance footage and witness descriptions allowed Homicide detectives from the Prosecutor’s Office to issue a suspect composite sketch of the shooter and a photo of the getaway car that was located on Maple Street in Kearny on Friday Aug. 21."

Maybe the public could have been more aware of the need to find this vehicle if the Observer had not erroneously reported that the getaway car was FOUND ON MAPLE STREET IN KEARNY ON FRIDAY AUG. 21!

When I first read this, I thought that it must just be another case of the Observer's poor grammar. I thought that the writer must have been trying to say that the Prosecutor's Office issued the composite sketch on August 21, not that they found the getaway car on Aug. 21. But then I looked at the sketch on the front page of KOTW, and found that it is clearly marked 8/19/09 next to the artist's signature. So the composite was released 2 days before Aug. 21. Then, I looked at the "Community News" link on the Observer's webpage and found a similar errouneous quote, "Police officials found the vehicle on Maple Street and 'they took off from there.'"

Then, I figured that the Observer would surely print a correction in the next week's paper to alert the public that they have mislead them about what was potentially THE MOST IMPORTANT LINK to the criminals' capture. But, I can't seem to find the correction in the next week's edition. Luckily, the Kearny Police did work tirelessly to solve this crime. Admirably, they were still able to develop an informant who led them to the getaway car even though the Observer told the public that it was already found.

Fortunately, the victim, who every other paper reports to be 47 years old, lived for another 10 years beyond the age at which the Observer reports that he died (37 years old). "The 37-year-old, who struggled with the robbers died at the scene, according to the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office in Jersey City."

Sadly, when I finished reading the Observer and tried to call the Hudson County Sheriff's Homicide Det. Sgt. Daniel Diaz, whom the Observer reported to be on the scene, I found that the Sheriff's Department has no Homicide Unit and that there is no Det. Sgt. Daniel Diaz. I did learn that the Hudson County Prosecutor has a Homicide Unit and that Det. Sgt. Ephraim Diaz was involved in this case. "Hudson County Sheriff’s Office homicide Det. Sgts. John Appleyard and Daniel Diaz were on the scene by 9:30 a.m.,..."

However, I was amused to find that the State Regional Medical Examiner has now been named a "COUNT" Medical Examiner by the Observer's staff -- apparently he is a vampire who will follow in the grand tradition of Counts Dracula and Chocula! "...along with the count medical examiner."

Finally, congratulations to Det. Paul Dispoto on his Observer field promotion to sergeant. "Det. Sgt. Paul Dispoto from Kearny’s BCI unit,..."

Maybe next week's Publisher's Column can pose this question to the public: Where are all the FACTS in the Observer's reporting?

Quotes taken from the Observer webpage.