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Fleeing Driver Pursued Through Cliffside, Fairview, Ridgefield And North Bergen Nabbed At Home

A fleeing driver whose car collided with police cruisers three times during a low-speed chase through parts of East Bergen and North Hudson might've thought his pursuers gave up when he didn't see them behind him anymore.

Joshua Hayes

Joshua Hayes

Photo Credit: BACKGROUND: Boyd A. Loving (file photo) / INSET: CPPD

Wrong.

Pulling his mother's 2011 Toyota Camry into their driveway in Fairview less than 20 minutes later, Joshua Hayes was immediately seized by a group of undercover Cliffside Park police officers.

It all began after Cliffside Officer Julio Perez-Tavera stopped Hayes for improper passing on Anderson Avenue near Cliff Street shortly after 4 p.m. Monday, Feb. 13, Deputy Police Chief Vincent Capano said.

Hayes, 30, who was known to area police, "slowed down as if to stop, then took off," the deputy chief said.

He then turned onto Jersey Avenue, headed into Fairview and continued on into North Bergen, Capano said.

Hayes threw something out the window outside James J. Braddock Park on Woodcliff Avenue in North Bergen and continued driving, he said.

Eventually, he doubled back into Bergen County.

Speeds weren't excessive, but Cliffside Park police still terminated their pursuit after one of their units was struck twice, Capano said.

Fairview and Ridgefield police picked up the chase, during which a Ridgefield cruiser was struck head-on.

The sergeant driving it was taken to the hospital with an arm injury and was released a few hours laters with no broken bones or tears -- just soreness, his colleagues said.

Hayes at various points drove along Bergen Boulevard, Edgewater Avenue and Anderson Avenue while being followed by police, who said he also drove the wrong way down Roosevelt Avenue.

Eventually finding himself clear, Hayes actually called Fairview police to say that he'd surrender.

Cliffside Park police in unmarked vehicles boxed Hayes in when he pulled up at his mother's 9th Street home a short time later.

He eventually was sent to the Bergen County Jail on a Ridgefield warrant charging him with aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer and resisting arrest.

Cliffside Park police charged Hayes with eluding and evidence tampering, among other counts, while issuing more than a dozen traffic and motor vehicles summonses, Capano said.

Fairview police also were filing charges.

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