On May 5, at about 7 p.m., Kearny police units were dispatched to Belgrove Drive, where a caller believed a man was intoxicated and driving a red car erratically, endangering the public. Specifically, the vehicle was allegedly driving head-on into traffic, causing others to swerve for their lives.
Sgt. Tim Castle quickly arrived and found the vehicle, matching the description, traveling on Woodland Avenue. Utilizing lights and sirens, he attempted to stop the vehicle, which was, in fact, driving into oncoming traffic.
However, the driver slowed but would not pull over.
A brief pursuit ensued until officer were able to stop the car in the area of Dukes and Devon streets. The driver immediately showed signs of heavy impairment and was asked to get out of the vehicle. When officers asked that he remove his hands from his sweatshirt pocket, he did — and airplane bottles of liquor fell out from it. In all, 10 such liquor bottles were recovered, not to mention an empty Corona bottle.
Fernando Lira-Leon, 35, of Kearny, who did not even possess a valid license to drive a vehicle, performed terribly on sobriety tests and was arrested. The vehicle was impounded. A summons was issued to Marco A. Luis-Rojas for allowing Lira-Leon to drive the vehicle in the first place.
At KPD Headquarters, Fernando Lira-Leon blew double the legal limit for alcohol and was charged with eluding, DWI, careless driving, unlicensed driving, failure to regard a stop sign and open container of alcohol in motor-vehicle. Per the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office, the charges were lodged on a summons so that Lira-Leon could be released to a family member.
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Kevin A. Canessa Jr. is the editor of and broadcaster at The Observer, an organization he has served since 2006. He is responsible for the editorial content of the newspaper and website, the production of the e-Newspaper, writing several stories per week (including the weekly editorial), conducting live broadcasts on social media channels such as YouTube, Facebook, and X, including a weekly recap of the news — and much more behind the scenes. Between 2006 and 2008, he introduced the newspaper to its first-ever blog — which included podcasts, audio and video. Originally from Jersey City, Kevin lived in Kearny until 2004, lived in Port St. Lucie. Florida, for four years until February 2016 and in March of that year, he moved back to Kearny to return to The Observer full time. Click Here to send Kevin an email.