The many faces of tragedy
| Monday, April 28, 2003,By ALISA CAMACHO,HERALD NEWS |
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An avid fisherman and caring lover. A cog in a family-run drug machine and gun-slinging desperado. A likeable guy.
From someone's little boy to suspected cop killer, Omar Marti wore many faces.
In upstate New York, he was girlfriend Ebony Saunders' romantic "Loveboat." She called him LB for short. He drove her to work, cooked elaborate meals and doted on her two children. She thought they would marry someday.
But authorities believe that for Fair Lawn Police Officer Mary Ann Collura, Omar Marti was a death sentence. On a brisk, dark April night, the 23-year-old gunned down the borough's first female officer on a church lawn as he evaded capture, police said. A warrant had been issued for his arrest months before a Clifton Police officer attempted to pull him over for speeding. After the chase that ensued, police said, Marti pulled out a .380 Magnum and fired.
Authorities found $1,000 worth of marijuana in the red Nissan he was driving. By then, he had fled in a Fair Lawn squad car and had run over Collura as she lay dying in the grass, police said. Shots hit Clifton Officer Steve Farrell's elbow; one passed through both legs.
He survived.
The incident sent Marti on a 60-hour odyssey from New York to Florida. A massive manhunt requiring thousands of law enforcers up and down the eastern seaboard ended when Marti, a gun in each hand, was killed in a shootout with police on a street in western Florida. Though Marti had never pointed a gun at his relatives, he left a bullet-riddled family reputation as his legacy.
Collura's slaying represented the pit the Martis fell into - once pillars of the community and now labeled relatives of a merciless murderer. His grandmother, Carmen Villegas, bursts into tears at the mere mention of his name. An aunt sits behind the locked and bolted door of her Main Avenue beauty salon, doing business, but refusing to talk about him. Passaic police Officer George Villegas, Marti's uncle, orchestrated the surrender of his nephew's suspected accomplices, but remains tight-lipped. They wait for Florida authorities to release his body so funeral arrangements can be made.
"From what I knew of him, as a child he was very intelligent, very outspoken. He was always trying to make a buck - not in a bad way," said cousin Hector Rivera, who described the woodworking projects Omar and his brother, Victor Jr., often crafted and sold. "I'm not saying what he did was right, but I was shocked to hear it."
Nonetheless, the shots struck Fair Lawn, a quiet suburb where some folks still leave their doors unlocked at night. They left longtime Passaic residents reminiscing about a time, decades ago, when Omar's father, Victor Sr., soared to success. He opened Empire Printing, the city's first Latino-owned print shop. As children, Omar and Victor Jr. spent hours in the Monroe Street storefront while their father produced invitations and campaign signs for local elections. Their mother took the boys to school every day and made sure they had a proper religious upbringing.
"My son was a good kid, a loving son," said Aurora Villegas Marti. "I vehemently regret the life my son found himself wrapped up in and will take the pain caused by his decision to my grave."
Victor Sr. was the second branch of the Marti family tree, which had roots planted in Puerto Rico. Almost immediately after emigrating from Rincon to New York, and eventually to Passaic in 1968, the first generation became prominent as Marti-owned stores sprouted up all over the city.
Then, in 1975, Victor Sr. was arrested in Bergen County on drug charges and received a year of probation. By the time he was again arrested on drug charges, in 1998, Empire Printing had been closed for nearly a decade and his marriage was on the verge of collapse, relatives said. Victor Sr. and Aurora divorced after the boys graduated from high school.
"They worked hard to expand (their businesses). Every time somebody got married, the parents bought them a grocery store," Passaic Mayor Sammy Rivera recalled. "I don't know how these kids got to the problems they have now. The parents, uncles and grandparents are decent, hard-working people."
In the years after Victor Sr. lost the printing business, he and both sons started a drug distribution operation, authorities said. After the Fair Lawn shooting, investigators discovered that the attic of their Paulison Avenue home had been converted into a sophisticated greenhouse with elaborate timer and irrigation systems. Marijuana crops worth more than $30,000 were seized.
Life was somewhat different in the sleepy upstate New York village of Johnson City, where Omar had spent the past few years blending in. He told relatives back in Passaic that he was attending school. If nothing else, the atmosphere of the 17,000-population small town was a far cry from Passaic's urban façade, though Omar had his brushes with the law there, too. In October 2000, police raided the Wells Avenue apartment he shared with his then-girlfriend, 35-year-old Karen Brown, and charged them with attempting to sell crack cocaine and marijuana, as well as with possession of drug paraphernalia and weapons offenses. Detectives had discovered a loaded .25-caliber handgun tucked away in the bedroom. Records show that Omar served two months of a four-month sentence in the Broome County Jail.
"He comes to town. He'd stay awhile and go back. Could he have been bringing drugs? Well, certainly. He's a convicted drug dealer," said Johnson City Detective Sgt. Darren Hannon, pointing out that a $3 hit of crack in New York City sells for $20 to $25 upstate. "If you bring a sizeable amount of the product, you do the math and you can make a lot of money."
Omar was released and sentenced to five years' probation, and authorities discovered that he was spending time in New Jersey, said Broome County Probation Officer Emmet Martin. His release agreement mandated that Omar not leave the state of New York without permission, though he frequently bounced back and forth between Passaic and Johnson City, at times visiting relatives and going deep sea fishing off the Jersey Shore. Martin suspected that Omar often had violated probation, but said he couldn't prove it. After he was finally caught early last year for breaking probation, Omar was sent back to jail for several months and afterward regularly met with Martin, though he often wasn't around for impromptu home visits.
When Martin received a call from the Manhattan district attorney saying that officers in the New York Police Department's 32nd precinct arrested Omar Nov. 10 for possession of a weapon with a defaced serial number, Broome County authorities issued a warrant for his arrest. He had already posted $10,000 bail and managed to slip through the cracks for five months, until the Fair Lawn incident brought him back into the spotlight.
"I never saw him get angry or lose his temper. If anything, he always wanted to talk things out. On the other hand, when I inherited him from New Jersey and called his probation officer there, the guy said 'Good luck. He's a monster,'" Martin said, adding that the only time he allowed Omar to leave the state was when his cousin, Matthew Fields, was killed in the crossfire of a shooting in Paterson last year.
"This was an extremely pleasant guy. He'd bat the breeze and talk about fishing," Martin said.
It was with pole in hand that Omar sought solace and often retreated to anywhere he found water, a habit he picked up from his father as a child.
"Whatever he was doing, he kept it away from where he lived," said Jimi Thomas, who last year rented an apartment to Saunders, Omar's girlfriend. "Half the time they weren't really here. Maybe two times out of the week. They'd come and stay for a while and leave."
It was there, in the second floor of that Helen Street building, that Omar set up an inflatable pool to house the turtles he had caught when he jumped in a creek wearing brand new boots, Saunders said. He often took her 11-year-old brother on fishing excursions and would disappear for hours.
"Whenever he had problems, he went fishing," said Saunders, who began dating Omar three years ago after they met at a card game. He stepped in and played the role of father figure for her children and ran errands in one of the many cars he returned with after trips to Passaic. Afternoons were spent delivering Meals On Wheels to fulfill obligations so he could collect welfare benefits, said Martin and Saunders.
In November, Omar left Johnson City, Saunders said, and got into the weapons charge trouble in Manhattan He'd call frequently and pop up for weekend visits. A three-person sheriff's department warrant squad had tracked him and knew he had ties to New Jersey, though police there weren't notified, because Broome County didn't have any solid leads that he was actually there.
"Unless we have concrete information that he's in an area, it's pointless to start a search," said Broome County Sheriff's Detective Sgt. Patrick Isenburg, who featured Omar in the local newspaper's Most Wanted section in late November of last year. "He was laying pretty low when he came to this area. We strongly feel this last time around, we had such strong coverage in the area and such good intelligence we were at most a half a step behind him."
By the time New York State authorities started surveillance on Saunders' house a little more than a day after the Fair Lawn shooting, Omar Marti had already been there and again had eluded police.
"He told me what happened and I told him to get out, so I could get my mind together. It was like, did this boy really tell me what I think he just told me?" said Saunders, 22. "He was crying and said, 'I love you and I'm still going to see you.' I said, 'I love you' and just closed my eyes. He just gave me a kiss. I didn't want to see him go."
It wasn't until Saunders read a newspaper the next day that she realized Marti had omitted vital details.
"He told me the cops Maced him, he blacked out, started shooting and ran," she said. "It should of hit me he didn't tell me everything."
Reach Alisa Camacho at (973) 569-7165 or CamachoA@northjersey.com
I think I'm going to BARF! Why don't they just canonize him a saint and be done with it?
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Letter to the Editor
http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkyJmZnYmVsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2MDkzODI3
Regarding the tragic shooting death of a Fair Lawn Police Officer Mary Ann Collura and the shooting of Clifton Police Officer Steven Farrell:
These are two brave police officers who attempted to use less-than-lethal force to subdue their suspects. In return, they were shot and run over by a small- time drug dealer. My question is what is the Passaic County Probation Department doing about it?
Small time (non-violent?) drug dealers get probation. Look into the record of the suspect, Omar Marti, for example. What sort of supervision are these criminals receiving from the Probation Department? None. Criminals sentenced to probation are required to pay fines, perhaps occasionally take random drug tests, warned to stay out of trouble, and told to get jobs.
Probation officers, poorly trained to begin with, are certainly not trained in any way to protect themselves or others. They make very infrequent home visits to houses of offenders but are usually too intimidated to visit ones who are most dangerous. And on the rare occasion when probation officers do leave their offices to make home visits, offenders don't even bother to acknowledge them or let them in.
Many states train probation officers as peace officers and even arm them. These states also mandate that probation officers actually leave their cubicles, go out in the community, and check up on offenders. The goal is to involve probation officers in the communities, both in a social service and public safety capacities.
Unfortunately, the Passaic County Probation Department is doing very little for social services and even less for public safety. It has no goal clarity or function.
John Goodyear ,Clifton, April 20
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Sixty hours hunting down a cop killer
Sunday, April 27, 2003
By AMY KLEIN
STAFF WRITER
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Hour by hour in hunt for killer
- Thursday, April 17, 10:06 p.m. - Fair Lawn Police Officer Mary Ann Collura is shot dead, and Clifton Oficer Steven Farrell iswounded.
- Friday, April 18, 5:15 a.m. - Passaic police pick up Victor Marti II, Omar Marti's brother, walking along the Monroe Street Bridge. He is later charged with hindering apprehension and drug and weapons possession.
- 2:30 p.m. - Ivan Marti, Omar's cousin, turns himself in to the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office and is charged with hindering apprehension and drug and weapons possession.
- 3:30 p.m. - Passaic police pick up Victor Marti Sr. walking on a street and charge him with hindering apprehension and weapons possession.
- 6:30 p.m. - Joseph Marti Jr. is arrested at his Garfield home and charged with weapons possession and hindering apprehension.
- Sunday, April 20, 9:39 a.m. - Omar Marti is killed during a shootout with police.
- 2 p.m. - Raul Santiago is arrested at his Passaic home and charged with obstruction of justice and hindering apprehension.
- Monday, April 21, 1 a.m. - Manuel "Manny" Brignoni turns himself in to the Florida Highway Patrol in Seminole County, Fla., on charges of weapons possession and aiding and abetting a fugitive.
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The clock began running at 10:06 p.m., just after the first bullet ripped through Fair Lawn Police Officer Mary Ann Collura's chest.
At that moment, Mike Mordaga, chief of detectives at the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office, was driving home through Paramus. The first words came over his radio: Officer shot.
Then: Officer dead.
The report began a 60-hour manhunt across four states, as hundreds of officers from local, state, and federal agencies pursued a cop killer. County sheriffs themselves scoured riverbanks and canvassed neighborhoods, alongside off-duty officers who threw on police jackets and immediately reported for work.
It was an extraordinary show of collaboration, said detectives, looking back on the investigation less than a week after the final arrest. During the 2½-day chase, dozens of agencies operated as one unit, stretching the dragnet from upstate New York to Florida.
While police in Passaic pressed street informants for leads, officers in Hackensack questioned suspects throughout the night. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration flew officers to Binghamton, N.Y., while sheriff's deputies in Florida scoped out addresses where the gunman may have been hiding.
The case belonged to every cop. A killing in Bergen County is a Bergen case, but when an officer dies in the line of duty, it's different.
"It's that bond, that commonality," said Mordaga, who headed the investigation.
In less than an hour, police knew their killer was Omar Marti. Within seven hours, they had made their first arrest in the case. In 60 hours, Marti was dead.
All before Mary Ann Collura was buried.
A hunt begins
Marti and his cousin Ivan Marti were speeding east on Route 46 in a red Nissan around 9:40 p.m. on April 17 when Clifton Officer Steven Farrell spotted them. The car's New Jersey license plates didn't match any on file, and Farrell tried to pull the car over, but it took off. Another car, driven by Omar Marti's brother, Victor Marti II, followed behind Farrell.
Farrell chased the Nissan into Fair Lawn, where it ran over a curb, blew out a tire, and ended up in front of the Van Riper-Ellis/Broadway Baptist Church.
The rest of the story has become etched in people's minds. Omar Marti struggled with Farrell, wounding him and fatally shooting Collura, an 18-year veteran, policesaid. Marti bolted in Collura's car, soon careening through an intersection where he hit another car. Then he ditched the car.
The clock was running.
Minutes after the shooting, officers from departments in Bergen and Passaic counties flooded the area. Some, like Mordaga, headed for Broadway and 31st Street in Paterson, where the killer had abandoned Collura's patrol car.
Others flocked to the church parking lot, pulling up in patrol cars and staring, horrified, at the scene on the lawn. About 150 officers packed into the gym, a temporary command center for the night, and broke up into search teams. They were looking for Ivan Marti, who they thought had fled on foot.
Fair Lawn Detective John Ietto was off-duty in South Jersey when a friend called after hearing on the scanner that an officer had been shot. As Ietto dialed his department's number, his pager went off.
Emotions were running high. Adding to the chaos, police were dealing with two crime scenes in two counties, with at least two people on the loose - at least one of whom was possibly armed.
In a small room in the back of the church, Mordaga gathered the police chiefs from Passaic, Clifton, Paterson, and Fair Lawn, along with Bergen County Sheriff Joel Trella and his counterpart from Passaic, Sheriff Jerry Speziale, and began divvying up responsibility. Teams of detectives, including Ietto, were sent to knock on doors, Passaic officers hit up their informants for tips, and canine units fanned out through the woods around the church.
By necessity, Mordaga said, he withheld some details of the investigation, so as not to affect charges pending against six alleged associates of Marti's, including family members who authorities said helped him flee.
However, Mordaga said, "it would have been impossible to solve this case in 60 hours if we hadn't operated as a team."
Almost immediately, evidence began turning up. Within moments, the Nissan's VIN number was traced through a database to Marti's father, Victor Marti Sr. Sources close to the investigation said Omar Marti also left his cellphone behind at one of the scenes.
Officers found the gun used to kill Collura on the front floor of her car. Investigators had a name - and a murder weapon - before midnight.
The tips come in
Victor Marti II was walking along the Monroe Street Bridge just before sunrise Friday when Passaic officers picked him up. Police believe he was driving the "tail car" the night Collura was killed.
With more than 10 ounces of marijuana in the Nissan split into plastic bags and ready for sale, Omar and Ivan Marti were probably headed to a drug sale, police said. A tail car is used to distract police if officers get too close to the car with the drugs, Mordaga said.
After the shooting, Victor Marti II swung by the church and picked up Ivan Marti, authorities said. Then he got Omar, dropping both separately at the family's house in Passaic, they said.
Having identified a suspect, investigators pressed anyone who may have come in contact with the Marti family - friends, relatives, girlfriends. They talked to customers believed to have bought drugs and weapons from them, as well as their competitors.
City of Passaic officers played a key role. "They developed strong leads. They knew the history of the targets," Speziale said. "The Passaic Police Department was extremely important and had such a wealth of knowledge on the targets."
Through the night, Ietto and his team rapped on doors in Passaic, rousing sleeping residents and following leads from house to house. People who knew the Marti family were brought to the Bergen Courthouse in the middle of the night for questioning. Speziale's staff ran names through a national database, looking for relatives and addresses.
"We were going to specific addresses that we had heard people may have been at," Ietto said.
At 2:30 p.m. Friday, Ivan Marti turned himself in to Bergen County detectives to face charges of weapons and drug possession, as well as hindering apprehension. An hour later, Passaic police picked up Victor Marti Sr. walking down the street. That night, police nabbed Omar Marti's cousin Joseph Marti Jr. at his home in Garfield. Both were charged with hindering apprehension.
All apparently were cooperative.
"If a cop is murdered and another cop is shot and you didn't do it, you want to make sure the cops know that," Mordaga said.
But the killer was still running.
Beyond state lines
Omar Marti left New Jersey on Saturday morning, less than two days after the shootout on the church lawn. Accompanied by his cousin Manuel "Manny" Brignoni, Marti headed for Binghamton, N.Y., where he once lived and was believed to be still selling drugs, authorities said.
New Jersey detectives weren't far behind, following in cars and flying in on DEA planes.
On Saturday, more than 100 detectives blitzed 16 addresses in Binghamton. They found plenty of people who knew Marti, but not Marti himself. Shortly after police arrived in Binghamton, Marti and Brignoni left - barreling south on I-95 in Brignoni's gray Oldsmobile, bound for Florida.
Police entered the Oldsmobile's license plate into a national database of wanted vehicles, notified the U.S. marshals office that Marti was a fugitive, and headed south. Investigators heard the pair might stop in Richmond, Va., so they planned to check on the way down.
Meanwhile, sheriff's departments in two Florida counties were alerted that Marti and Brignoni could be headed their way.
Mordaga flew to Florida on Saturday to wait for the squad to arrive. But the two fugitives got there quicker than anyone imagined.
At 9:39 a.m. on Easter, a Hernando County officer drove by one of the addresses New Jersey detectives had forwarded to his department. Marti was in a car in front of the house. He began to fire at the officer before leading police on a chase along a rural road through twocounties - shooting out the rear windshield during the pursuit.
Minutes later, Marti was killed in a shootout. New Jersey detectives who had just reached Virginia were sent home.
Less than an hour later, Mordaga was standing amid shell casings in the road. The Oldsmobile was trashed, overflowing with weapons, dirty clothing, and more than a pound of marijuana, Mordaga said.
"A lot of criminals say they're going to run until they're killed, but they don't really mean it. Most people would rather be in jail than dead," Mordaga said. "Once in a while someone keeps his word."
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6th man charged with aiding fugitive suspect in cop killing
Related story:
Fallen hero hailed as 'peacemaker and protector'
The last of six men arrested for helping Omar Marti, suspect in the killing of a Fair Lawn cop, appeared before a state Superior Court Judge in Hackensack on Thursday, authorities said.
Manuel "Manny" Brignoni, who waived extradition in Seminole Country, Fla., was charged with weapons possession and aiding and abetting a fugitive. He is accused of helping Marti in Florida before Marti was killed by police there Sunday.
Before Judge Donald Venezia, Brignoni entered a plea of not guilty, and bail was kept at $500,000, said Bergen County Assistant Prosecutor Jim Santulli.
Brignoni, of Passaic, was initially being held in Sandford, Fla., pending an extradition to New Jersey, after surrendering in Seminole County early Monday, authorities said. He arrived in New Jersey on Tuesday night.
Authorities said they have charged everyone believed to have aided Marti's journey south, including a Passaic man arrested Sunday.
- Karen Mahabir and Amy Klein
Play the video
Paterson Bishop Frank J. Rodimer leaving St. John the Baptist Cathedral after Wednesday's Blue Mass, honoring police officers who have died.