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Sure enough, an SUV with a smashed headlight headed his way just after 1 a.m., doing nearly 50 miles an hour in a 35 mph zone. Bulger pulled the driver over, smelled alcohol on his breath and asked him where he’d come from.
Jersey City, he said.
Bulger checked out the headlight. Freshly damaged.
Less than a half-hour after the crime, a likely suspect was in custody — more than 20 miles from the scene.
“Holy s—! I killed that guy?” Bulger said 23-year-old John Dineen told him. The sergeant arrested Dineen, who was then held till he could be taken back to Jersey City to face charges.
John Dineen (COURTESY: JCPD)
“Without this stop by Sgt. Bulger and his knowledge of the Jersey City incident, there would likely be no arrest in this case or closure for the family of the victim, Jermaine Forrester,” said River Vale Police Chief Michael McCann.
Bulger, who joined the department in 1998, was promoted to sergeant last October.
“This was just tremendous police work by an outstanding police officer.”
What also stood out for the chief was the fact that Bulger represented a last line of defense: Dineen was on his way home to Harrington Park, the next town over.
The victim, 33-year-old Jermaine Foster of the Springfield Gardens section of Queens, for some reason was crossing the four-lane highway that leads to the Pulaski Skyway when he was clipped by Dineen’s 2009 black Toyota Land Cruiser around 12:45 a.m. Thursday.
Forrester was pronounced dead at the scene.
A witness followed the SUV in another vehicle, but then peeled off on Kennedy Boulevard.
Dineen failed a field sobriety test, then refused a breath test, and Bulger took him into custody. He was brought to Hackensack University Medical Center for a blood-alcohol test, but refused that, as well, the chief said.
While being brought back to Jersey City, Dineen reportedly told city officers: “I can’t believe that I killed that guy. I can’t believe I hit him.” Police said they advised him to keep his mouth shut.
Police also quoted Dineen at Jersey City’s North District Police Station as saying: “Please give me something to throw up in. I’m gonna be sick thinking about the guy I just hit.”
A judge determined that was cause enough to charge him with death by auto.
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