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Felix Joel DeJesus, 41, "was last seen congregating with five (5) civilians" in Westside Park behind John F. Kennedy High School in Paterson on Feb. 2, Haledon police said in announcing the reward on Tuesday, Aug. 9.
He was wearing only a t-shirt and pants on what was a freezing evening in early February.
Haledon police said they’d interviewed several witnesses and reviewed area surveillance video which, when combined, put DeJesus in the park a short time after he’d been briefly taken into custody by police in Paterson following a disturbance at a city bodega.
Haledon Police Chief Angelo J. Daniele has promised that his department’s efforts “will not idle until Mr. DeJesus is located.”
It all began when Paterson police received a 911 call from a bodega on Union Avenue, where a woman claimed that DeJesus had accosted her.
The Paterson officers for some reason had turned off their body cameras while DeJesus was in their vehicle, prompting what city authorities said is an internal affairs investigation overseen by the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office.
Video that the officers did record show DeJesus being handcuffed while facedown on a snow-splotched sidewalk.
“My hand is broken,” he tells the officers. “Papi, it’s broken.”
They get the apparently drunken DeJesus to his feet before struggling to put him in the back seat of a police SUV (photo above, left).
“Papi, don’t push me, don’t push,” he says at one point. “Hey, but you are.”
DeJesus at first had his legs out the open rear door as he sat there. The officers then struggle to get him fully into the vehicle as DeJesus curses at them, mutters to himself and tells them again that his hand was broken.
He asks why he’s being taken into custody multiple times but receives no answer to the question.
Eventually he stands up and gets himself fully into the back seat.
Both recordings end with DeJesus still sitting there handcuffed. There’s no video of what happened from that point on.
New Jersey Attorney General guidelines require law enforcement officers to keep their bodycams on while a civilian is in their custody. Why these particular officers turned theirs off hasn’t yet been answered.
The officers did record their conversation with the woman whom DeJesus purportedly disturbed at Union Avenue bodega.
“Let me get your ID and I just need you to write something up, all right, saying he touched you and stuff like that,” one of them tells her. “Probable cause form.”
She says she isn’t “trying to do all this paperwork….I just know I went in the store to try to buy something and whoever he is just grabbed me and turned me around. I don’t know who the f*ck he is.”
The woman turned out to be an ex-con.
“I just did three years,” she tells the officers. “So I’m not into the whole writing reports.”
“Go ahead, you good,” one of them replies. “We’re just going to transport him out of here.”
A judge ordered the city to release the complete recordings after efforts by family members and community activists to obtain them failed.
A family lawyer has sued the borough to also obtain documents about the police investigation.
Meanwhile, loved ones have attended Paterson City Council meetings demanding answers and getting into heated exchanges with officials.
DeJesus is described as 5-foot-9 and 200 pounds. Authorities ask that anyone who sees or has information that can help find him contact Haledon Police Detective Sgt. Timothy Lindberg or Detective Christian Clavo at (973) 790-4444.
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