Mary Ann Collura

The Chase Begins

And for a brief moment, it seemed that the chase would end before it really began.  With Farrell on his tail, Marti eased off of Route 46 onto the exit ramp for Route 20. It is from there a short hop to Route 21 South, the straightest route to Newark, and most of the Clifton cops have learned that if a fleeing suspect is going to break and run, that's the road he'll take. But Marti didn't flee south. At first, he didn't flee at all. He pulled over on the side of the turnoff, a few yards down the road from a woman in a disabled vehicle. Farrell pulled in right behind him.

A similar black police car

Something in Farrell's gut told him to sit tight.

"I got him to stop, but I wouldn't approach the car," he recalled. "Something was telling me there's something more to this...I just knew the guy was about to run."

A moment later, the woman in the disabled car got out and slammed her door. Farrell speculates that Marti assumed that it had been Farrell who had gotten out of his car and chose that moment to punch the gas and speed off. He did, and Farrell took off after him.

Farrell's quiet night was over.

At almost the same moment that Farrell began chasing Marti in earnest, calls started coming in all over Clifton on other issues, meaning that virtually every officer who would have been available to back Farrell up was otherwise occupied.

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1. Point Blank
2. Holy Thursday
3. As If He Never Was
4. Small Time
5. An Easy Shift
6. An Act of Courage
7. Last Call
8. The Prodigal Son Returns
9. Not So Innocent
10. A Routine Stop
11. The Chase Begins
12. On His Own
13. Show Down
14. In the Killer's Eyes
15. "Oh, God!"
16. Marti's Flight
17. Legacy
18. Bibliography