February 28
...serving up your daily dish.
An accused burglar wanted for a string of crimes in Baristaville was busted after he went to the Bloomfield Police station to retrieve a car he’d left at the scene of one his alleged crimes.
Police arrested Andre Padan, 32, of Orange, and charged him with a series of smash and grab burglaries that began last November. In each case rocks were thrown at store windows and merchandise taken. Paden’s arrest came about after police had impounded a car thought to be used in a burglary in the Watsessing part of town on Friday, reports today’s Star Ledger.
Later that morning the owner of the car, a woman, came into the station with her brother, Padan. Police recognized the man from a surveillance tape and arrested him.
Montclair Police also charged Padan with three burglaries. He is now being held at the Essex County Jail. Mr. Padan might be a contender for his own entry here.
If the reporting above is accurate (regrettably, this has to be asked on this site of late), well, criminals may make "rational choices" as James Q. Wilson has said, but that doesn't mean they're smart decisions as well. There's never a lot of brilliance down there on the basic level of street crime.
Posted by: cathar (8T) | Feb 28, 2006 9:27:23 AM
and now we have our very own entry for KTU's Dumb, da-dumb, dumb...broadcast
Posted by: todd | Feb 28, 2006 10:05:50 AM
Cathar -- what's your beef about the reporting on the blog here? Is your problem with the Star Ledger or the Baristanet. Please explain?
Posted by: aussiebookguy | Feb 28, 2006 10:11:03 AM
My "beef" is with Baristanet. And I would think the gist of it would be rather obvious if you've been reading this space the last several weeks, particularly with regard to vague phrasing. Rumor holds sway here, too. This is even joked about. (And then the original rumor is replaced by newer ones others have heard....it's enough to have the walls of Baristaville come tumbling down.)
Did you, perchance, confuse this site with the Financial Times or the Wall Street Journal?
Posted by: cathar (8T) | Feb 28, 2006 10:25:43 AM
Did you, perchance, confuse this site with the Financial Times or the Wall Street Journal?
With all due respect, Cathar, perhaps you have? It's just a blog, you know. Some accuracy has been given up for timeliness. Or amusement. Clearly you enjoy the site as it is, or you wouldn't be on it so much.
Posted by: Captain Vegetable | Feb 28, 2006 12:45:15 PM
After yesterdays thread - where it was determined I am a fascist for not coddeling child molesters - I was stunned when I opened my newspaper to find this on the front page of the NJ section.
"GPS helps cops track sex offenders
State parole officers caught a convicted sex offender in bed with a juvenile after being directed to the home by a satellite-based system that New Jersey authorities are using to track the movements of the state's most violent sexual predators, officials said this morning.
Capt. Sean Asay told the Assembly Judiciary Committee the global-positioning system monitoring the movements of convicted sex offender Richard Tyler sent a message to parole officers that he was not where was supposed to be at a certain time.
Using the GPS system, which features a bracelet that offenders must carry at all times, parole officers tracked Tyler to a Mercer County home and found him sharing a bed with the juvenile, Asay said. They quickly arrested Tyler and charged him with violating the terms of his supervision.
Asay, who said there was no evidence the juvenile was molested, nonetheless heralded Tyler's arrest as proof the new GPS-monitoring pilot program that legislators enacted last year is working. He said parole officers also used the system to arrest another offender caught leaving the state without getting prior approval.
But, Asay said, the main benefit of the $3 million pilot program currently monitoring 28 sex offenders is deterrence.
Contributed by Rick Hepp"
Posted by: hrhppg | Feb 28, 2006 12:49:42 PM
p.s. the story in the Star Ledger is longer, with more details.
Posted by: hrhppg | Feb 28, 2006 12:53:03 PM
Cathar
If you have a problem with things discussed here or the way they are reported, stop coming on so much and find some other way to pass your time.
Posted by: chubbycheeker | Feb 28, 2006 1:08:04 PM
Chubbycheeker, I sometimes try to set right things that are discussed here, why is why it is important that some of my time be passed here. Now come down off your spavined horse on this one.
Captain Vegetable, yes, it is "just a blog." But one from which people draw recommendations re local businesses and where others post their opinions on them. Not exactly a "make or break" forum, but still an occasionally harsh on. Red Cheetah, for example, is done with this crowd before it ever opens, and Cuban Pete's is staggering (bad, given the alcohol issue, I know). It often just seems that a confirmatory phone call is never made on a story. And however good or bad a reporter Phil Read may be, to rely purely on the Star-Ledger or local informants (as per several recent traffic stories) doesn't quite qualify as good journalism.
hrhppg, I know I didn't call you a "fascist" yesterday, that's not my style, and if someone else did, let me apologize for that, ah, "nothead." Especially since the churl hasn't done so himself. My own differences of opinion yesterday (there are so many, it's hard to keep track) were, I think, reserved for the brave citizen who wished to start a sort of whispering campaign against a few offenders in our midst. Which led to me becoming a VERY temporary bedfellow, if without his name-casting, with one notteham.
Posted by: cathar (8T) | Feb 28, 2006 1:29:20 PM
Cathar-
I guess we all owe you a great big THANKS for being here to correct things discussed here. Where would we all be without the omniscient one.
Posted by: chubbycheeker | Feb 28, 2006 1:33:41 PM
Where indeed, chubbycheeker? I am so touched that you've thanked me publicly. Will I be seeing you at the Red Cheetah too?
Posted by: cathar (8T) | Feb 28, 2006 2:03:26 PM
Cathar-
True, cribbing a story from the Star Ledger isn't exactly Pulitzer material, but it is a perfectly valid blogging technique to aggregate stories from other news sources in addition to stories broken here first. I, for instance, don't read the Star Ledger. Ever. But if there's an article that's interesting and especially germane to recent topics of discussion on Baristanet, then I think by all means making note of it and linking to it is a reasonable thing to do. It's like the poor man's newswire.
I know this isn't a terribly important debate, and you are certainly entitled to your opinion, but I think sometimes you're a little harsher on our hosts than necessary. After all, it's not like we pay for the privilege of being here or anything, and I somehow doubt the ads in the margin support a full-time news staff.
Posted by: Captain Vegetable | Feb 28, 2006 2:19:18 PM
hrh,
"After yesterdays thread - where it was determined I am a fascist for not coddeling child molesters...". I'm on your side.
Posted by: Troll Diddy | Feb 28, 2006 3:44:08 PM
Thanks T. Diddy. I'm wearing my fascistic like a badge of honor.
Though, the person who titled me that (I didn't say you cathar :) ) probably wants to argue that the man in the story was only going to read the little girl a bedtime story.
Posted by: hrhppg | Feb 28, 2006 3:50:39 PM
hrhppg, I often tend to rush to defend the rude here. Terming someone, a "fascist," however, verges on the scurrilous. Terming someone a troll is kindly, Uncle Remus-like even.
Captain Vegetable, inaccurate reporting is fine until it hurts either us or someone we like. And it's not cribbing from the Star-Ledger that bothers me (the grammar here is at least as good, if not usually better), it's the reliance on rumor. As for the "news staff," both Debi and Liz are in fact experienced journalists, as good as anyone on the Ledger, I'm sure. But didn't Johnny Cash sing that "Good news travels slow, bad news is like wildfire?" Even on the poor man's newswire.
Posted by: cathar (8T) | Feb 28, 2006 7:32:50 PM
