Raw LLM Responses

By Anthony G. Attrino | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include a statement from the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office. When Nijeer Parks walked out of a New Jersey prison in 2016, he returned to his family in Paterson and told them he was done messing up his life. Twice convicted for selling drugs, Parks spent six years behind bars and said he decided after his release to earn an honest living. He found a job as a clerk at the local PriceRite, began saving money and made plans to marry his fiancé. So when police last year filed numerous charges against Parks stemming from a shoplifting incident at a Woodbridge hotel in which the suspect hit a police car before fleeing the scene, the ex-convict who had worked eagerly to repair his life, tried just as hard to clear his name. “I had no idea what this was about. I’d never been to Woodbridge before, didn’t even know for sure where it was,” Parks told NJ Advance Media last week. “I’ve never even been to Middlesex County besides going to a Rutgers University football game,” Parks said. Parks didn’t drive a car, didn’t have a license and had to ask his cousin to drive him to the Woodbridge police station, after he learned police had a warrant for his arrest. Moments after he arrived, he said, he was in handcuffs and later confronted by detectives who told him repeatedly, “You know what you did.” Before everything was over, Parks would spend 10 days in jail, all of his life savings, and the next year fighting to clear his name. Parks attorney, Daniel Sexton of Jersey City, filed suit against the township, the police department and public officials, including Mayor John McCormac, alleging investigators violated his clients rights by relying on facial recognition software that has since been banned by the state. A spokesman for the mayor said the township had not yet seen the civil complaint and could not comment. Man sues Woodbridge police for wrongful arrest NiJeer P