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A caller told police she’d “heard a loud bang” on Southhard Street and “saw a gray Audi drive off” around 6 p.m. April 20.
Hearing the shots-fired report, an off-duty city police officer began following the vehicle.
The off-duty officer radioed in the location, and two detectives who were responding to the same call quickly headed that way, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin and NJ State Police Major Frederick Fife said in a joint announcement on Tuesday, May 2.
The detectives followed the Audi as the driver pulled into a parking lot at Getty and Madison avenues.
The investigators “drew their weapons and ordered the occupants out of the car,” said Platkin and Fife, who’s the department’s temporary officer in charge.
They found Dariel Reyes, 26, with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun with an extended magazine capable of holding 30 rounds and fellow passenger Erlyn Nunez, 20, with a .40-caliber semi-automatic handgun loaded with 14 bullets, they said.
Both were charged with weapons offenses and sent to the Bergen County Jail.
Nunez was released six days later, with conditions, under New Jersey’s bail reform law, records show. Reyes remained there on Tuesday, May 1.
Platkin and Fife commended the law enforcement officers involved in the arrests.
“For an off-duty officer to follow a suspect’s vehicle in their own car shows the commitment they have to the oath they took,” Fife said. “I want to thank those officers as well as their supervisors for a job well done to improve public safety in Paterson."
Platkin had announced a state takeover of the day-to-day operations of the Paterson Police Department in late March, citing what he called a “crisis of confidence” on both sides of the law and the “decimation” of trust between the two.
The move is good not only for residents who’ve come to distrust city police, the attorney general said.
It's been done for the officers themselves, too, he said, who “care deeply about their community” but have lacked the leadership and resources to do their jobs safely and effectively.
“There is no safety without trust,” Platkin said.
SEE: NJ Attorney General To Take Over Paterson Police Operations
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