At the trial for retired Union City Police Officer Juan Estrella wages on, he testified yesterday that a colleague told him that then-Police Chief Nichelle Luster made an off the cuff remark referring to Dominicans as “animals.”
While the discrimination case was supposed to resume at the historic William Brennan Courthouse in Jersey City virtually on Tuesday, that session was ultimately cancelled and the jury trial picked back up where it left off yesterday.
The morning session was dominated by evidentiary hearings for potential witnesses, Police Officer Michael Garcia and David Tafur, though Judge Kalimah Ahmad ultimately ruled that only Tafur would be allowed to testify and Garcia could go home.
Garcia was the desk sergeant in charge of officers when the “Weehawken incident” happened where Estrella was disciplined for failing to respond to a mutual aid request in the neighboring municipality…