26°
Paramus and New Jersey State Police joined in chasing down John A. Garulli, 34, of New Windsor on the northbound Garden State Parkway, Paterson Public Safety Director Jerry Speziale said.
Moments earlier, members of the city police Narcotics Division detectives saw Garulli buy drugs from ex-con Thomas N. Williams, 26, of Paterson at the corner of McLean Boulevard and East 38th Street, Speziale said.
They tried to stop Garulli as he left, but he hit the accelerator and sped off recklessly, hitting the pursuing police vehicle and tossing drugs out the window as he went, the director said.
Garulli finally pulled over less than two miles from the Rockland border -- at Exit 172 in Montvale -- but he required officer to arrest him by force when he refused to get out, he said.
He was carrying four strips of suboxone, Speziale noted.
After sending Garullil to the Passaic County Jail on charges of drug possession, resisting arrest, eluding and assault by auto, detectives obtained a search warrant for Williams’s 11th Avenue apartment.
They grabbed Williams as he left, then found the 6,600 heroin folds, alokng with a bottle of promethazine, drug cash and a 9mm H&K P30SK handgun loaded with 10 rounds – three of which were hollow-point bullets, the director said.
Williams remained held in the Passaic County Jail on a total of 21 drug and weapons charges, including being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm.
Paterson detectives also arrested a Rockland man as part of the same operation a day before the pursuit, Speziale reported.
Kevin Brennan, 41, of Pearl River was taken into custody after investigators said they saw him buy drugs from Williams at the same corner – McLean Boulevard and East 38th Street.
They followed Brennan and arrested him at the Montvale Service Area on the parkway, a short distance from where they captured Garulli the next day, the director.
Brennan, who Speziale said was carrying 110 heroin folds, was sent to the county jail on drug possession charges.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Ridgewood and receive free news updates.
