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Delivering the information to CLIFFVIEW PILOT through desk Sgt. Thomas Ferrari, Patrolman Frank Mena reported that Somick swerved “to avoid an animal” when his vehicle “struck a parked car” at the corner of 70th Street and Kennedy Boulevard at 1:50 a.m. Saturday.
Mena also confirmed that he gave Somick a ride home in his township police car, the sergeant told CLIFFVIEW PILOT shortly before 2:30 a.m. today.
Edward Somick“It was pretty cold out,” Ferrari said.
Asked why an ambulance wasn’t summoned, Ferrari said Somick apparently didn’t need one.
Federal law prohibits hospitals from disclosing whether someone has been treated or admitted. In addition, the original notice entered into the North Bergen Police Department computer lists the incident as a three-vehicle accident, according to a ranking officer who called it up on a computer screen.
UPDATE (12/20/2010): Recorded radio talks and statements from police could help investigators reconstruct the department’s response to a multi-car crash this weekend involving North Bergen High School Vice-Principal Edward Somick, an officer on duty that night told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. CLICK HERE
Somick lives a little over a mile from the accident site, which is only four blocks down Kennedy Boulevard from the high school.
Police sources with direct knowledge of the incident told CLIFFVIEW PILOT that Somick’s Jeep hit two parked vehicles and flipped. Two officers found Somick outside his vehicle; Mena later showed up and immediately took Somick away, they said.
The crash follows a series of incidents involving the police and Somick, whose mother is North Bergen Mayor Nicholas Sacco’s longtime girlfriend.
Kathryn Somick and her four sons all work for the North Bergen Board of Education.
One of them, Steven Somick, is the business administrator of the seven-school district, which has nearly 7,500 pupils and students. The assistant superintendent: Sacco.Besides holding that position, and being mayor nearly 20 years, Sacco is also a state Senator in District 32, where he serves on the Law and Public Safety Committee.
Six months ago, Ed Somick tangled with a student from the school — leaving the boy with a ripped shirt after being dragged in a headlock — outside a sports dinner at a township facility near police headquarters. The outcome of that case couldn’t be determined this morning.
Nicholas Sacco
Somick, 39, drew police attention just weeks earlier, when he was accused of calling a neighbor a racial epithet and then scuffled with officers sent to keep the peace — before Police Chief William Galvin ordered him released from the township lockup without charges.
The incident began when Somick returned from the school’s senior prom in May to find a neighbor’s car blocking his Durham Avenue driveway.
Several witnesses told police that Somick called the 18-year-old Hispanic NBHS student a racial epithet, then went after officers sent to calm things down. Somick was handcuffed and put in the back of a patrol car, where, witnesses said, he repeatedly banged his head against the window.
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CLIFFVIEW PILOT’s investigation into Edward Somick’s involvement earlier this year with North Bergen police:
*Sacco calls chief’s order to free disorderly VP ‘non story’
*Key figure emerges in case of disorderly school official linked to Sacco
*Prosecutor to NB cops: Talk to us
*Township spokesman’s answers raise questions
*Cops ready to talk to investigators
*Chief orders disorderly VP freed with no charges
*Dispatches tell if school VP got special treatment
*NBHS official not accused in neighborhood spat
Police put Somick in a holding cell, but Galvin showed up at headquarters at 1 a.m. and ordered him released. Capt. William Dowd, who also came to headquarters, then drove Somick home, with Galvin going along for the ride, several witnesses told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. Confronted briefly at G.P.’s restaurant in Guttenberg two weeks later, Sacco called CLIFFVIEW PILOT‘s reporting nothing more than its publisher/editor’s “interpretation of the facts.”
“If I didn’t call you back,” Sacco, 64, added, referring to unreturned phone calls and emails, “why would I talk to you now?”
He also questioned why no other media had reported the incident.“It’s passé,” Sacco said, dismissively. “Maybe if there’s another issue you want to talk about….”
Authorities from both the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office and the U.S. Justice Department have told CLIFFVIEW PILOT that they would investigate if any police personnel agreed to talk. But unlike the case of suspended Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa, no one on the North Bergen force to this point has been willing to openly challenge the brass.
The accident scene:
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