67°
Sgt. Joseph Gutierrez was alerted to the silver Acura as he pulled into the lot of the 7-Eleven on Liberty Street around 3:20 a.m.
Inside were two men, both sleeping — one in the back seat and the other behind the wheel, Verdi said.
Gutierrez got out, looked inside and saw the car in drive, so he put it into park, the chief said.
Gutierrez and Officer Angelo Ratto, who’d just arrived, roused the driver, identified as 32-year-old Anthony Hayer of Hackensack.
As he got out, the officers said, they smelled alcohol on his breath. They began administering a field test.
“He did a couple of things but then refused to continue,” Verdi told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. “So they told him he was being placed under arrest.”
During a subsequent patdown, the officers found an empty holster in his waistband, along with a knife and a small amount of pot in his pockets, the chief said.
Checking the car’s glovebox, they found a .25-caliber semiautomatic handgun, with serial number filed off, he said, adding that it wasn’t loaded.
Hayer was being held on $60,000 bail in the Bergen County Jail, charged with weapons possession counts that include having a defaced firearms, in addition to pot possession.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Hackensack and receive free news updates.
