Weehawken police contest Hudson County Sheriff’s Office account of Los Angeles murder suspect’s arrest

Michaelangelo Conte (The Jersey Journal) | December 26, 2013

Weehawken Public Safety Director Jeff Welz has released additional information on last week’s arrest of a Rollin 40s Crips street gang member charged with using an AK-47 to kill two men and wound two others on a Los Angeles street in August.

A Hudson County Sheriff’s office report on the capture of Donovan Johnson, 22, in Weehawken says he was found and arrested by a sheriff’s officer.Welz said this week that is not true.

“The previous story failed to give the appropriate facts of what really happened,” said Welz.

The FBI asked for sheriff’s office and Weehawken police help in arresting Johnson, believing he was at a Fulton Street residence. But a Weehawken police officer remembered a Los Angeles man had been involved in a recent incident on the block and they found the man lived in a nearby house, was using his mother’s last name and was Johnson’s brother, Welz said.

Law enforcement then turned to that residence, took the brother into custody and took his cell phone. The FBI Task Force, which includes sheriff’s officers, entered the building but did not find Johnson.

Weehawken police maintained a perimeter in case there was gunfire and one officer spotted a man on the street who resembled Johnson. The Weehawken officer told him to stop, saying there was a hazmat situation, but the man said he lived in the residence being searched, Welz said.