Mary Ann Collura

Holy Thursday

Clifton & Fair Law, NJ

April 17, 2003. Holy Thursday.

In Fair Lawn, it will always be remembered as the night Mary Ann Collura was murdered. She had, it seemed, always been a looming presence in the borough, a big boned girl with a quick laugh and a real gift for dealing with people. Even as a kid she had talent in equal measure for winning friends and scaring the hell out of anyone who chose not to be her pal. The first female cop on the Fair Lawn department, she also had real talent for elbowing her way into a man's world and earning respect.

Mary Ann Collura as a girl

Just ask her brother Paul, who remembered his embarrassment when Mary Ann convinced his little league coach to let her practice with the team, even though girls in those days were barred from playing. That embarrassment only got worse, Paul Collura had told New Jersey Monthly, when the coach approached him after a particularly sorry practice. During the practice, Mary Ann had made a spectacular play and the coach turned to Paul Collura and said, "Hey, Collura, how come you don't play more like your sister?" Needless to say, Paul Collura added, that was his last day in Little League.

If anything, in the two years since her death, Mary Ann Collura has become an even more ubiquitous presence on the elm-lined streets of Fair Lawn. In memory of her, the local post office was renamed. That took an act of Congress. They renamed the shooting range at the Bergen County Police Academy for her, and a room in the Bergen County Prosecutor's office was even named for her. In Fair Lawn, a local ice cream shops renamed one of its sundaes — vanilla with a hard chocolate shell, the same treat she used to push on her colleagues in the department - the Mary Ann. That didn't take an act of Congress. It took an act of love.

The Ultimate Sacrifice album cover

There is even a song written about her called "The Ultimate Sacrifice" by Peter Prince. It has become the anthem of the International Association of Police Women. The IAPA awarded posthumously Mary Ann Collura their Medal of Valor.

April 17, 2003 is also a significant date in Clifton. The memory of it is carved into Steve Farrell's body and it's etched in the minds of every cop who serves with him in the Clifton Police Department.

But ask about April 17 on that stretch of Paulison Avenue in Passaic where Omar Marti, the young man who murdered Mary Ann Collura and wounded Steve Farrell grew up, and you're likely to be greeted with silence or blank stares. If Marti, who died from a shotgun blast by his own hand and a fusillade of police bullets on a Florida roadside three days after the Collura murder, had imagined himself to be a legendary gangsta, a real life Tony Montana whose exploits would be remembered by budding young drug dealers everywhere, he was wrong.

• Print version
• Email this
• Digg it
• del.icio.us

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