Crime

The Rutgers University chapter of Black Lives Matter Aug. 9 launched an online petition demanding that the names of the officers involved in the April 9 Diahlo Grant shooting be made public. “Black Lives Matter Rutgers and the Grant family demand that the Andrew Carey, the Middlesex County prosecutor, release the names of the officers,” reads the petition, which is …

A township woman was killed Aug. 6 after she was involved in an automobile crash on Cottontail Lane, near Weston Canal Road. Police said that Adejoke Sanusi, 53, of Somerset, was pronounced dead at the scene after she was extracted from her Toyota Rav 4.

A Franklin Township success story received a nod earlier this month  from an unlikely source: the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. In an interview by NPR’s Steve Instep, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said that the communications model used by township police and Franklin’s African-American community is successful and should be replicated in other parts of the country.

The Rev. DeForest “Buster” Soaries said July 21 that he will call for a federal investigation of whether a Franklin man’s civil rights were violated when he was killed in a shootout with township police. Several hours later, unrelated to Soaries’ statement, the Rutgers University chapter of Black Lives Matter took to the streets in New Brunswick, marching and chanting …

A 23-year veteran of the township police force has developed a self-defense course geared to young women preparing to strike out on their own. In addition to his experience as a police officer, Capt. Greg Borlan is also a 4th Degree Black Belt in Combat Hapkido, from which he has culled some key defensive moves for his class, called “PINKS,” an acronym …

A Middlesex man was killed early in the morning of July 18, after his car hit a patch of trees and overturned along Easton Avenue. Police said 61-year-old Pedro Vazquez was entrapped in his Toyota Rav 4 after the 3:45 a.m. crash, and was unconscious and unresponsive when he was extracted. Vazquez was taken to an area hospital, where he was …

Several dozen members of the township’s Sierra Leonian community gathered at Hempstead Gardens July 16 to remember one of their own killed there last year. Francis Vandy was found by police June 30, 2015 lying in a parking lot at the apartment complex off Route 27, the victim of a gunshot wound to his head. Vandy was pronounced dead at …

The Class of 2016 of the Franklin Township Police Youth Academy graduated July 15 in a ceremony held at Franklin Middle School. The nearly three dozen students spent the previous five days drilling, exercising and receiving instruction on a variety of topics, just as they would if they were in the real police academy.

A township man and New Brunswick resident were arrested July 7 on weapons and drugs charges. Corey McDaniel, 33, and Cecil Kalawa, 38, of New Brunswick, were arrested at McDaniel’s home after township police and detectives from the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office Organized Crime and Narcotics Task Force executed searches.

A township man remains lodged in Somerset County Jail after he was arrested for allegedly molesting a child for two years. Efren Merino-Hernandez, 23, was arrested at the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office in Somerville, where he voluntarily reported after being located by police in Edison, according to a release from the prosecutor’s office.