The New Jersey Attorney General’s Office has released dashboard and surveillance camera footage from a double fatal crash in North Bergen in September that took a tragic turn after a driver evaded a police officer on the scene.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
The civilian drivers who died during the incident were previously identified as Joseph Aziz, 20, of Jersey City, and Bryan Rivera, 24, of North Bergen, while North Bergen Police Lt. Jason Appello was the officer who tried to initiate a traffic stop, as HCV first reported.
The fatal collision is under investigation by the Attorney General’s Office of Public Integrity and Accountability (OPIA).
The recordings are being released pursuant to policies established by the AG’s Office in 2019 designed to promote the fair, impartial, and transparent investigation of fatal police encounters.
Additionally, representatives of the families of Aziz and Rivera were given an opportunity to review the recordings prior to their public release.
According to the preliminary investigation, Appello was driving northbound on Tonnelle Avenue in a marked police vehicle and made a U-turn near 70th Street and Tonnelle Avenue and started to travel southbound on Tonnelle Avenue.
He activated the vehicle’s emergency lights and began following a Honda Accord driven by Aziz after the Accord was allegedly involved in a traffic violation at the intersection of 69th Street and Tonnelle Avenue.
Aziz fled southbound on Tonnelle Avenue at a high speed, and in two separate instances, he passed several vehicles in the southbound lane and drove into the northbound lanes of oncoming traffic, surveillance camera footage shows.
In the last instance, in the area of 51st Street and Tonnelle Avenue, Aziz continued driving in the oncoming lane of traffic.
At the same time, an uninvolved Toyota Corolla driven by Rivera and occupied by three passengers was traveling in the northbound lane of Tonnelle Avenue.
At approximately 11:18 p.m., the Accord violently collided with Rivera’s Toyota Corolla on Tonnelle Avenue, between 50th and 51st streets. Aziz and Rivera were seriously injured in the collision and were later pronounced dead.
One passenger in the Accord and three passengers in the Corolla were all taken to a hospital for treatment. The investigation later determined that the Honda Accord driven by Aziz was a stolen vehicle.
An ongoing investigation is being conducted by OPIA into this incident, and no further information is available at this time, though two police radio transmissions were also released Tuesday and can be heard here.
The family of crash survivor Christopher Solano started a GoFundMe page to cover his medical bills and rehabilitation costs has raised $21,154 to date.
