Hooper Avenue Closed Saturday Night Due To Possible Explosive Device
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February 9, 2022Hooper Avenue Closed Saturday Night Due To Possible Explosive Device
David R. Giordano, 37
The Ocean County Prosecutor's Office announced Tuesday that a Toms River man was charged with raising a false public alarm in an incident that shut down Hooper Avenue Saturday night. On February 6, 2022, Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer announced that David Giordano, 36, of Toms River, was charged with False Public Alarm in connection with an incident that occurred in Toms River Township during the evening hours of Saturday, February 5, 2022.
He was indicted last summer on counts of threatening Toms River Town Hall and the Ocean County Courthouse. Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer said David R. Giordano, 37, was detained Monday at a Belleville hospital following a crash on the Garden State Parkway.Giordano initially attracted notice in March 2021 by painting a blue line down Hooper Avenue with paint he allegedly stole from Home Depot while driving his bucket truck, which investigators claim he took from an impound yard.
Giordano allegedly stirred an uproar on Saturday night when he put a string of blue LED Christmas lights on Hooper Avenue. According to Billhimer, when Toms River police responded to a report of a suspicious item around 9 p.m. on Saturday, they discovered a string of blue LED Christmas lights with one end plugged into a power inverter connected to a car battery and the other end attached to a Clorox bleach bottle containing liquid.He said the device was put up between the Ocean County Courthouse and the Ocean County Administration Building in the middle of Hooper Avenue.
According to Billhimer, Hooper Avenue was closed from Madison Avenue to Washington Street due to concerns that it could be explosive.It was determined that it was not an improvised explosive device by investigators from the Ocean County Sheriff's Office K-9 Unit, Ocean County Prosecutor's Office Major Crime Unit-Arson Squad, New Jersey State Police Bomb Unit, and Berkeley Township Hazardous Materials Unit, he added.
According to Billhimer, their investigation proved Giordano was the one who placed the device in the road.Over the years, Giordano has had a number of run-ins with the law. Toms River police published a list of more than 200 times they had contact with Giordano after the line-painting incident, including 20 times he was detained.
Giordano revealed the light show in an email to more than two dozen media at 8:30 p.m. Saturday, saying: "We stand for Blue Lives matter I am pro-police. However, there are some bad apples. I will continue My support for the police. By lighting up the town with blue lights. Until they arrest me for it. Blue lights represent cops, but not all cops. It represents the good cops. When the blue line was painted on Hooper Ave. no one understood why Someone that hates police Would support the police. It is time for the state of New Jersey to take notice that police brutality and cover-ups of police brutality are over." He closed the email by saying he and another person were responsible for the light display.No one else has been charged with anything related to the incident.
A warrant for Giordano's arrest was issued Sunday, according to Billhimer. After being brought to a Belleville hospital following a Parkway crash in Bloomfield, he was arrested on Monday. At the hospital, Toms River cops apprehended him. Giordano was found in possession of alprazolam, methamphetamine, and drug paraphernalia during a search incident to his arrest, and he now faces drug possession charges. He is being kept in the Ocean County Jail until a detention hearing is scheduled.Giordano was arrested in March 2021 after investigators say he took his bucket truck from an impound facility and then used paint stolen from Home Depot to paint a blue line down Hooper Avenue.
The case has been transferred to Monmouth County because the threats were made against the Ocean County judiciary, according to the prosecutor's office.
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