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Julio Delacruz, a 36-year-old personal trainer, was still sitting in his Dodge RAM 1500, “dazed and incoherent,” when officers responded to a 9:45 p.m. crash at 10th Street and Division Avenue, Police Chief Thomas Nielsen said this morning.
The truck had just plowed into a Honda Accord, headed up onto a sidewalk and crashed into a retaining wall, he said.
Delacruz, who wasn’t injured, was fleeing a crash moments earlier with a 2007 Ford pickup occupied by five people at Hackensack Avenue and Broad Street, the chief said.
The Ford got shoved into parked car that was pushed into another behind it, Nielsen said.
All five of those occupants and one from the Accord were taken to Hackensack University Medical Center with assorted injuries.
Delacruz ran stop signs in both crashes, Nielsen said, adding that he was “under the influence of a substance other than alcohol.”
A drug recognition officer who examined him at headquarters determined that Delacruz was under the influence of a controlled substance and “unable to safely operate a motor vehicle,” the chief said.
Delacruz was being held on $63,500 bail in the Bergen County Jail pending a Dec. 4 first court appearance.
He is charged with:
- 6 counts of assault by auto while under influence of drugs;
- 6 counts of leaving an endangered victim;
- 2 counts of reckless driving;
- 2 counts of careless driving;
- 2 counts of failing to stop for a posted stop sign.
He was also charged with one count each of:
- leaving the scene;
- resisting arrest by flight;
- being under the influence of drugs;
- DWI;
- DWI within 1,000 feet of a school zone;
- failing to report a crash;
- failing to produce a driver’s license.
MUGSHOT: Courtesy CARLSTADT PD
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