Resident:
Hunter was too close
BY JOLENE HART
Staff Writer
SAYREVILLE — The sight of a camouflaged, armed man passing a residential yard was enough to startle one borough man and raise questions of whether hunting regulations were being followed.
The apparent hunter was spotted near a Sayreville home at the border with Old Bridge around 4:30 p.m. Feb. 12. An Oakwood Drive resident, Kevin Jaick, said he saw a man run past his yard carrying a rifle and immediately called the Sayreville Police Department.
The armed man was only about 5 feet from the fence that surrounds Jaick’s property, he said, and was running behind Schied Drive toward the neighboring landfill.
According to police, Jaick’s call was the only report of the armed man, and there were no reports of shots fired or threats made with the gun.
Still, several officers responded and stationed themselves around the area, police said.
Though police said they searched the area and neither heard nor saw any activity, Jaick was not satisfied with police response.
"I called Sayreville police. They arrived but left five minutes later. … [A Sayreville police officer] said that it was not their area, but it affects me that it is behind my house," Jaick wrote in an e-mail to the Suburban. "I now feel unsafe. I am sitting at home in fear."
Officers estimated that at least 20 minutes was spent on the call, during which time they searched the wooded area between 51 and 53 Oakwood Drive and at the end of Schied Drive, where they were able to scan the area from above. One officer entered the area through the LaMer housing development and another searched a path to the landfill through a break in a fence at the rear of London Terrace Apartments, Old Bridge.
"We observed the area for several minutes and didn’t see movement of any kind, nor did we hear shots being fired," Sayreville police wrote in the report of the incident.
"I had been told that hunting season was good until Saturday 2/14/04," wrote one responding officer.
Hunting is allowable, with a permit, but no less than 450 feet from a house. Jaick reported, however, that the man was running 5 feet from his fence and pointing a gun.