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It all began when an Englewood resident called police at 11:51 a.m. to report the pair “loading bags into a blue crossover type vehicle” from two abandoned houses at Cross Street and Levinsohn Place, city Police Capt. Timothy Torell told CLIFFVIEW PILOT tonight.
Responding Officers Rhakeem Stennett, Anthony Gonzalez and Javier Garcia stopped the mens’ blue Volvo XC90 a short distance away, Torell said.
Seconds later, the vehicle sped off, the captain said.
Marquis Z. Holloman (COURTESY: TEANECK PD)
The passenger bailed out and was quickly grabbed on West Palisade Avenue after a citizen flagged down Officer Mark VanWormer.
The passenger — identified as 30-year-old Rameesh Dula — jumped from the SUV while it was still moving, Torell said police were told. Seeing Dula injured, VanWormer approached him.
“He admitted he did not want to be involved in a police chase, so he jumped from the vehicle,” Torell said.
Meanwhile, the driver — identified as 26-year-old Marquis Z. Holloman of Teaneck — kept going. An alert was broadcast.
Soon after, Holloman filled up the SUV’s gas tank at a service station on westbound Route 4 and took off without paying, Paramus Deputy Police Chief Robert Guidetti told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
A Fort Lee police officer who was passing by spotted the Volvo and alerted his Paramus colleagues, who quickly closed in, Guidetti said.
Rameesh Dula (MUGSHOT: Courtesy ENGLEWOOD PD)
Holloman’s SUV struck one police vehicle before the front of an unmarked cruiser collided with its rear quarter-panel, sending it into a spin and leaving it nearly perpendicular across the road.
Holloman bailed out but was cornered by police in a nearby parking lot after he ran across Route 17 and back again, witnesses told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
Inside the vehicle police could see copper piping.
No serious injuries were reported, although two officers were taken to Hackensack University Medical Center with what Guidetti said were minor injuries.
Holloman, meanwhile, was under police guard at Bergen Regional Medical Center, where the chief said he was taken with a neck injury.
Paramus police charged Holloman with two counts of aggravated assault on a police officer, theft and eluding.
Complaints for aggravated assault and eluding from Fort Lee police were pending.
Detectives in Englewood will be charging Holloman with two counts of burglary and criminal mischief and one each of attempted theft, obstruction, hindering, fleeing, eluding and tampering with evidence, Torell said.
PHOTOS: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Correspondent Boyd A. Loving (CLICK to enlarge)
Dula was treated at Englewood Medical Center before being brought to headquarters for questioning. He was expected to be charged with burglary, theft, attempted theft, criminal mischief, obstruction and hindering, the captain said.
United Water was called to Englewood after one of the bank-owned, burglarized homes began flooding.
“They apparently took the main feeders,” Torell told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. “Thousands of dollars worth of damage was done.”
The 5-foot-8-inch, 160-pound Holloman was out on bail after consecutive stops earlier this year by Bogota and Ridgefield Park police for motor vehicle violations. Leonia police flagged him for violations in 2010 and Englewood police did the same a year earlier, records show.
“Over the last several years, burglaries to vacant homes have significantly increased due to the scrap metal trade. It is truly an epidemic and something we deal with on a regular basis,” Torell said.
PHOTOS: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Correspondent Boyd A. Loving
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