On Feb. 16, at quarter past 7 p.m., Officer Anthony Oliveira was patrolling near Fish House Road in South Kearny when he observed a Pennsylvania-registered Infiniti G50 driving against the flow of traffic, in order to pass slow-moving traffic, which had backed up due to a train moving across the roadway.
Other motorists patiently waited in said traffic, clearly not realizing the driver of the Infiniti was much more important than them and was therefore entitled to skip ahead.
Officer Oliveira pulled over and them made contact with the driver, Xavier T. Villaruel, 25, of Orange, and then quickly learned Villaruel’s driving privileges were suspended.
To make matters worse, six warrants were outstanding for Villaruel’s arrest. He was arrested (briefly anyway). A licensed driver took custody of the vehicle.
At KPD HQ, Officer Oliveira issued traffic summonses for driving after DL suspended, reckless driving, and improper passing. And then, despite endangering the lives of many motorists, having had six active warrants and three new traffic summonses, Villaruel was released from custody, as all involved courts simply provided new court dates.
Editor’s note: Police say whether he shows up for his Union Township, Roseland, Newark or Kearny court dates is anyone’s guess, but the State of New Jersey certainly isn’t incentivizing anyone to appear at their court dates with this system. Additionally, there were 20 total arrests in the past week.
Learn more about the writer ...
Kevin A. Canessa Jr. is the editor of and broadcaster at The Observer, a place where he has served on and off since 2006. He is responsible for the editorial content of the newspaper and website, the production of the e-Newspaper, writing several stories per week (including the weekly editorial), conducting live broadcasts on Facebook Live, including a weekly recap of the news — and much more behind the scenes. Between 2006 and 2008, he introduced the newspaper to its first-ever blog — which included podcasts, audio and video. Originally from Jersey City, Kevin lived in Kearny until 2004, lived in Port St. Lucie. Florida, for four years until February 2016 and in March of that year, he moved back to West Hudson to return to The Observer full time. Click Here to send Kevin an email.
