Community still in shock over tragedy
Friday, October 1, 2010
BY MARK J. BONAMO
Hackensack Chronicle
MANAGING EDITOR
HACKENSACK — On the night of Sept. 21, a small group of Hackensack residents stood around a utility pole on Railroad Avenue, tying a teddy bear to it up high while lighting candles at its base. Such scenes are sadly familiar to anyone traveling New Jersey’s roads; people leave makeshift memorials built as touchstones of tragedy usually involving an automobile accident.
But just 10 feet away comes first the light, then the sound, a reminder of what made this a shrine: an outbound NJ Transit Pascack Valley Line commuter train, passing from Hoboken through Hackensack, taking people home.
Caesar Muloki, an eighth-grade student at Hackensack Middle School, never made it back to his own home. At around 3:15 p.m., Caesar was crossing the tracks north of the Central Avenue near the intersection of Railroad Avenue and Clay Street when an NJ Transit train struck and killed him days before his Oct. 2 birthday. He was 12 years old.
"A young boy’s life was taken by a tragic accident so close to my daughter’s school," said Viviana Tangarife, a neighborhood resident and mother of three who lives across the street from the accident site, three blocks from the middle school. "This is completely unsafe. As you can see, anything can happen in a matter of seconds." With that, Tangarife’s comments were interrupted by the train’s horn.
But Caesar’s untimely death may begin a larger discussion in Hackensack that’s not so easily drowned out: how to ensure the city doesn’t lose another child before he or she can grow up.
Along the tracks, safety not always first
Caesar was relatively new to Hackensack. According to school officials and classmates, he moved to the city with his family from Zambia around a year ago.
According to NJ Transit spokesman Dan Stessel, Caesar was listening to an iPod as he walked along the tracks and might never have heard the engineer sounding the train’s horn. About 20 passengers were on the train at the time.
"This appears to be a tragic accident, and our thoughts are with the family," said Stessel.
Whatever the reason, neighbors claim that some younger residents engage in unsafe activities along the tracks.
"Our window has been broken from children putting rocks on the tracks, just to see the train crush the rocks," said Tangarife. "It’s a dangerous situation."
Hackensack Schools Superintendent Dr. Edward Kliszus noted that crisis plans put into place in the aftermath of such a fatal incident include informing the entire school community about the dangers of life along the train tracks.
"It’s very important that parents and teachers review as soon as possible safety rules about crossing streets, including staying off the railroad tracks," he said, noting that approximately 35 grief counselors were in place at Hackensack Middle School following the incident to help the community cope. "We live in a city, and trains are everywhere in this part of the Northeast, including Bergen County. You can put up all the fences you want, kids are going to climb them. The teachable moment here is that if you play on railroad tracks, you can get killed. This tragedy may save someone’s life if we remind them of that. Nobody is indestructible."
Penny Bassett Hackett, an NJ Transit spokesman, also noted that fencing along the train tracks is not always the best deterrent.
"We have some fencing along our right of ways, but regrettably people still break through the fences," she said.
Hackett instead emphasized education as the best way to avert another tragic accident.
"The best method for prevention is education," she said, noting that the transit agency actively promotes its own school safety program. "The message is very simple: don’t trespass on railroad property."
In tragedy’s shadow
The message back at the temporary memorial at Railroad Avenue and Clay Street was one of permanent loss, one perhaps harder to accept for the young.
"This didn’t have to happen," Lawryn Reid, 10, a schoolmate of Caesar’s. "His parents are going to be sad. I don’t want anyone to get hurt again."
Francisco Tangarife has lived along Railroad Avenue and close to the train tracks for almost 20 of his 24 years. He has been a witness to numerous accidents along his street, including incidents involving trains. Searching for words as part of his community’s search for meaning in the wake of this latest tragedy, Francisco looked beyond earthly bonds.
"This could have gone other ways. The only person who knows what he was doing is the little kid himself," he said, hugging his girlfriend as he watched the candles flicker across the street. "Only God can say, I guess."
E-mail: bonamo@northjersey.com
