Hackensack officer chases down ex-con in purse snatching from woman, 92 Cliffview Pilot
Posted by: Jerry DeMarco
Posted date: June 26, 2013
YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: A Hackensack ex-con with a staggering list of offenses over nearly two decades was chased down by a city police officer working an undercover detail after authorities said he snatched a 92-year-old woman’s purse as she sat on a park bench.
“Fortunately, the woman was not harmed,” Hackensack Police Director Michael Mordaga told CLIFFVIEW PILOT this afternoon.
Officer Ralph Cavallo was on restricted duty and in plainclothes after injuring his hand during an April arrest when 52-year-old Kenneth Earl Lyons ran past him near the corner of Anderson and Union streets yesterday afternoon.
“He had the purse tucked under his arm,” Mordaga said.
Lyons was released from prison in January after serving nearly two years for a pair of thefts. His record shows no fewer than three dozen other arrests and/or convictions dating back to 1995 in Bergen County alone.
Lyons has also accumulted a long list of outstanding charges out of Hackensack, Bergenfield, and Teaneck in the past five weeks.
Cavallo chased the 6-foot-3-inch, 215-pound Lyons four blocks to the YMCA, Mordaga said. Backup officers arrived and helped him take the ex-con into custody.
“A lot of credit goes to Officer Cavallo,” Mordaga said.
Lyons was being held on $10,000 bail in the Bergen County Jail.
The theft charge was added to the several previous counts that he must answer in court.
