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Montez L. Nelson
Nelson was released from state custody earlier this year after serving more than two years for the bomb incident, which nearly closed down the mall a day after Black Friday 2007.
Nelson, who turned 37 earlier this month, then skipped out on court appearances and warrants were issued. A judge revoked his bail and Bergen County Sheriff’s officers were soon on his tail. They nearly had him early Saturday morning, but he bolted.
Wasn’t the first time, either.
Nelson served several years in prison after trying to run down current Acting Bergen County Police Director Brian Higgins with a stolen Lexus just off Route 4 in 2000 following a late-night chase through several towns, a squadron of radio cars originally on his tail. Officers broke off the chase rather than take an unnecessary risk, especially because they knew Nelson, a career criminal, and could find him.
But Higgins, who was a sergeant at the time, trailed the car slowly at a distance, figuring his quarry would be looking for a safe place to ditch the vehicle, which was reported stolen the day before out of Hasbrouck Heights.
Sure enough, the Lexus pulled off Route 4 at Teaneck Road — headed right toward a patrol car in place at the bottom of the ramp. Higgins zipped in alongside, essentially blocking Nelson’s escape route.
“He waited until I exited my vehicle, then drove across the street and struck my patrol car,” Higgins said in court testimony in Hackensack more than a decade ago. Nelson kept backing up and hitting the police car, pushing it a good 200 feet, Higgins testified.
“I believe he was trying to hurt me,” Higgins understated on the stand. “This was not a situation where he just tried to scare me. He continued to strike my car over and over.”
The barrage left the officer with a torn rotator cuff, bruised ribs, and other internal injuries.
And although Nelson bolted, Bogota and Ridgefield Park officers grabbed him as he tried to swim across the Hudson River.
For his part, Nelson claimed that drugs had made him a “psychotic killing machine.”
Nelson’s criminal history includes several years in prison for a 1996 burglary convictions. The Lodi High School graduate has spent relatively little time on the outside.
He drew widespread attention on Nov. 24, 2007, the day after Black Friday, when he walked into a Sharper Image store at the mall, tossed a bag on the counter and said: “Be careful: There might be an IED (inside),” referring to the hair-trigger bombs that Middle Eastern terrorists use against American soldiers.
Nelson warned employees it would go off in 20 minutes, then he inexplicably retrieve the bag and left.
Now-retired Paramus Deputy Chief Jimmy Sheehan — a cop’s cop who was running counterterrorism for the mall-saturated borough, brought more than a dozen officers with him as they hustled to the mall.
Finding their suspect wasn’t difficult, as retired Chief Richard Cary noted: Nelson, who is black, had dyed his hair blonde and was wearing a denim jacket over a hoodie.
Closing the mall was on all of the police officer’s minds. To make things worse, it was the height of the Christmas shopping season, with somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,000 people inside. Keeping them inside where they were was certainly a risk, but herding them all into huge clusters in the parking lot made them sitting ducks if genuine wrongdoers were laying in wait.
Instead, Sheehan said, he viewed video surveillance monitors. In no time, his team quickly spotted and snatched up Nelson and the bag, which contained nothing more than a digital camera.
As it turns out, the malls in Paramus have much more sophisticated surveillance equipment and more watchful eyes now — all due to Nelson’s stunt.
But police aren’t laughing, knowing that a self-described nutjob is running around out there.
Superiors are reminding their line officers: Be safe.
And so am I.
Nelson is considered dangerous. If you know him, or know where he is, dial 911 immediately, or the Bergen County Sheriff’s Office: (201) 646-2200.
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