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“I apologize to any and all who experienced any … fear,” Saunders said in Superior Court in Hackensack this morning before being sentenced.
Saunders, 60, admitted that he circled the athletic field at Westwood Regional Middle School in a small plane and dropped three rolls of toilet paper in mid-October, during what he said was a practice run for a football game during which he’d planned to drop streamers.
Police got calls from parents of soccer players who were practicing on the athletic field at the Third Avenue school (formerly the Ketler School) the night of Oct. 13. A small, single-engine Cessna was circling the field, dropping objects, he said.
“Not knowing what this could be, we immediately contacted the Port Authority. We contacted the Bergen County Police Department, and we contacted the Bergen County Sheriff’s Office, which has a Bureau of Criminal Identification to collect evidence,” Westwood Police Chief Frank Regino told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. “We also contacted the FAA at Teterboro Airport and the prosecutor’s office.
“So we had everybody on board as quickly as possible, just in case.”
Detectives quickly identified Saunders after a vigiliant parent mentioned that the high schoolers were discussing a prank online involving an aircraft flying over the field during the upcoming Cardinals’ game.
Investigators then obtained a list of pilots in Westwood and quickly found Saunders, of Westwood Boulevard, who operates his craft out of Caldwell Airport in Fairfield, Regino told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
Police brought Saunders to headquarters for questioning. After he told his story, they let him go — and immediately contacted the FAA to determine what type of criminal statutes could be applied in this case, the chief said.
Before long, they had produced a complaint
“Based on the advice of the advice of the FAA and the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, we drafted a complaint under Title 6, Chapter 2, dash 11 (Title 6:2-11),” Regino said. “It’s basically a fourth-degree crime of dropping things from a plane.”
Although “toilet papering” is perenially a popular prank leading up to Halloween, Saunders’ purpose was to gauge the effect of colored streamers as a rallying gimmick for the Cardinals.
“There were only three rolls dropped. They apparently got wet on the way down,” the chief said. “One fell right on the field. Another one fell on the edge of the field near the bleachers, and the third fell near a wooded area.
“When you think of the alternative, it could have been a horror,” Regino told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. “This could have been very serious,” the chief said. “Between the kids and the adults, you had 100 people on or around that field.
“It was more than an error in judgment.”
During ceremonies last June, Saunders’ son was given the Dwight D. Eisenhower Award for Outstanding Leader of Character.
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