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Detective Mustafa Dombayci began chasing the grey Infiniti G35 on Memorial Drive toward Broadway just after 11 p.m. Saturday after noticing it had a broken driver’s side mirrors, Public Safety Director Jerry Speziale said.
The driver – identified as Adriano Giordano, 24, of Bloomfield -- pulled to the side of the road at Broadway and Straight Street, then hit the gas, spinning his tires and roaring off, after Dombayci and backup detectives got out of their vehicles car, the director said.
Giordano’s cut his headlights and swerved the sedan around cars, nearly hitting several of them, while blowing red lights in the area of Broadway and Carroll and Broadway and Rosa Parks Boulevard, Speziale said.
He then made a right onto Madison Avenue before the Infiniti crashed into the police cruiser and the porch on East 24th Street, he said.
City firefighters doused the police car fire.
WATCH VIDEO of the aftermath:
Detective James Jenkins took Giordano into custody and recovered a 9mm SCCY CPX-2 handgun from his right jacket pocket, Speziale said.
Dombayci found 43 crack cocaine bags and 22 heroin folds stamped “STAR WARS,” he said.
Giordano was taken to St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center for treatment of what Speziale said were minor injuries before he was to be sent to the Passaic County Jail to await a first appearance in Central Judicial Processing Court in Paterson.
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ALSO SEE: A driver who led police on a high-speed pursuit Sunday was shot and killed at the “spaghetti bowl” intersection of Routes 80, 46 and 23 in Wayne, authorities confirmed.
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