A host of unexpected results creates major changes in statewide rankings.

Joseph Pirri was slashed by another driver in the midst of a nor'easter Watch video

On March 7, Joseph Pirri, the father of two who lived in Blackwood, was just trying to drive home from work in a blistering nor'easter when he found himself in the midst of an incident in Deptford Township with a driver in a pickup truck. Pirri never made it home.

That motorist slashed him, and Pirri, 32,  died a week later from his injuries.

Prosecutors said they will announce a "major development" Wednesday afternoon in the investigation of that road rage killing in Gloucester County.

Pirri was able to describe his assailant as a black man, 30 to 40 years old, wearing a gray vest and jeans, authorities said at the time. The assailant was driving what is believed to be a Ford F250/350 with a crew cab and a white-over-tan paint job.

Megan Pirri holds a wedding photo of her and her husband Joseph Pirri. He died approximately a week after suffering injuries in a road rage assault in Deptford Township on March 7. (Lori Nichols | For NJ.com)
 

After attacking Pirri, the assailant drove off "in an aggressive manner" and was last seen heading south to Route 47.

Pirri left behind a wife, Megan, a 4-year-old son Gino and 9-year-old stepdaughter Alyssa.

His family recalled him as a devoted family man who was always ready to help a stranger in need.

Mother-in-law Betty Jean Hampton called Pirri "a good man who came face-to-face with evil" the day he was attacked.

Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattGraySJT. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us: nj.com/tips.

NJ Advance Media has put together a list of the top girls lacrosse seniors. Vote for the No. 1 player at the bottom.

Joseph Pirri was attacked in Deptford on March 7. Watch video

After Joseph Pirri was slashed to death in what was described as a road rage attack in March, Gloucester County investigators combed through video obtained from about 20 locations in an effort to ID his killer.

On Wednesday morning, that work culminated in the arrest of Everett E. Moore Jr., 54, of Clayton.

Megan Pirri, wife of Joseph Pirri, speaks during a press conference announcing the arrest of Everett E. Moore Jr., 54, of Clayton, who is charged in the road rage killing of her husband. (Joe Warner | For NJ.com)
 

Moore, who was arrested by members of the Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office and U.S. Marshal's Service at a gas station in Williamstown, is charged with first-degree murder and weapons offenses in the March 7 assault in Deptford Township.

It was snowing heavily that day as Pirri, 32, of Blackwood, was driving home on Tanyard Road. 

Shortly before 4:30 p.m., Moore's Ford F-150 King Ranch pickup truck illegally passed Pirri's Nissan Versa, authorities said.

Moore, described by investigators as a construction worker, then stopped in front of the Versa, got out and approached Pirri's car.

Authorities said Moore "severely slashed" Pirri in the face as the victim sat in his vehicle.

Officials have not explained what sparked the confrontation, but it may have involved a rude gesture.

Pirri ran to a nearby house for help following the attack and on a 9-1-1 recording, he can be heard in the background saying, "A guy passed me and I flipped him off .... he got out and ran up with a knife, put it through my window and cut me," according to the criminal complaint signed against Moore.

Prosecutor Charles Fiore would not comment on a motive during a press conference Wednesday afternoon, calling it an active investigation.

"I don't want to try the case here today," he said.

Pirri, who was able to describe his assailant and the pickup truck to police, died a week later of his injuries.

Those leads, coupled with video surveillance showing Moore's truck behind the Versa, passing the Versa and leaving the scene of the attack, along with witness interviews, led police to identify Moore.

Video of the pickup following the Versa was obtained from security cameras at Gateway Regional High School, which is less than a half mile from the scene of the attack. 

Everett E. Moore Jr. (Salem County Correctional Facility)
 

No video of the actual attack was obtained.

"Witness interviews and video evidence establish that Moore operated the pickup truck before and after the incident," the prosecutor's office said in a statement.

Cellphone data obtained via a warrant also confirmed Moore's phone was in the area of Tanyard Road at the time of the incident, according to the complaint.

Several members of Pirri's family, all wearing shirts emblazoned with his photo, attended Wednesday's press conference.

Pirri's wife, Megan, broke down in tears as she thanked investigators for their hard work and recalled her husband.

"He always put his family, friends and others before himself," she said. "He loved his family more than anything. Joe always had a smile on his face and was truly and genuinely a happy person."

Pirri left behind 4-year-old son Gino and 9-year-old stepdaughter Alyssa.

Moore was placed in Salem County Correctional Facility pending a detention hearing.

Investigators are still looking for witnesses who may have seen Moore and Pirri at the scene of the crime or who saw their vehicles traveling on Tanyard prior to the confrontation. Pirri was driving a red Versa and Moore's Ford has a crew cab and a white-over-tan paint job.

Witnesses are asked to contact GCPO Detective Warren Rivell at 609-685-7396 or Deptford Police Detective John Gigante at 609-929-7679.

Fiore praised all of those involved in the case.

"It was phenomenal police work," he said. Police from Clayton, Deptford, Glassboro, Mantua, Monroe, West Deptford and Westville assisted in the investigation, as did the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office and staff at the New Jersey State Police Real-Time Crime Center in Deptford.

Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattGraySJT. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us: nj.com/tips.

Leisure time activities can range from archery to Zumba.

Merriam-Webster defines pastime as "something that amuses and serves to make time pass agreeably" and leisure time as "taking place during time not used for gainful employment."

We all have our favorite things to do when we have "down time." Some people garden, some people jog, others read. In my case, down time often consists of no activity whatsoever.

MORE: Vintage photos around New Jersey

Here, we've compiled a collection of pictures of people in New Jersey enjoying time away from work, school and chores. And, whether you have a predilection for physical activity or you enjoy a sedentary lifestyle, we think you'll find a photo or two that speaks to you.

And here are links to past galleries on games and pastimes.

Vintage photos of fun and games in N.J.

Vintage photos of games people played in N.J.

Vintage photos of N.J. games and pastimes

Greg Hatala may be reached at ghatala@starledger.com. Follow him on Twitter @GregHatala. Find Greg Hatala on Facebook.

The buzz is just starting around the guys on this list.

NJ Advance Media has put together a list of the top girls lacrosse seniors. Vote for the No. 1 player at the bottom.

The EPA is handing out $800k worth of grants to help cleanup four polluted brownfield sites in New Jersey.

What do a meat processing site, an abandoned gas station and two abandoned industrial sites have in common? They're all getting hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal grant money dedicated to cleaning them up.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced on Wednesday that four New Jersey brownfield sites, two in Newark and two in Camden, were each being awarded $200,000 in federal grants to help cover cleanup costs.

Going forward, the cities will be primarily responsible for cleaning up the sites while the EPA will hold an oversight role.

These kind of cleanup projects typically take about two years to complete, said Walter Mugdan, the acting deputy regional administrator for EPA Region 2.

EPA touts N.J. Superfund site as ready for redevelopment

The announcement was made at the site of the former Berkowitz Fat Company in Newark's Ironbound neighborhood. Owned by Seymour Berkowitz, the company was a meat rendering operation that turned meat scraps into oils, tallow for candles and other animal products. The Berkowitz operations began in the 1970s.

From 2005 to 2007, the site was repeatedly inspected by NJDEP, which resulted in more than $2 million in pollution fines.

Now the site is largely vacant, though it does serve as a storage area for heavy construction equipment. But more cleanup still needs to be done, and the EPA grant money will help the city remove a dozen underground and above ground storage tanks.

Beyond the $200,000 EPA grant, Newark has applied for $83,000 in funding from NJDEP for the cleanup of the Berkowitz site according to Bill Lindner, the NJDEP's Office of Brownfield Reuse manager.

"This piece of property is the only thing [Berkowitz] left behind, and the city now owns it," Mugdan said.

The other Newark site is the former Allen's Amoco gas station site at 861-869 Clinton Avenue. The gas station was operational from its opening in 1937 to its abandonment in 1991, when the structures were demolished but the six underground storage tanks were left behind.

"We're excited to put these resources to use as part of our overall strategy as we're currently cleaning up 35 acres of brownfields within the city," said Carmelo Garcia, Newark's deputy mayor for economic and housing development, of the new EPA grants.

Since 2008, EPA has provided 23 brownfield grants to Newark for a total of $5.75 million, according to Mugdan.

Two former industrial sites were the grant winners in Camden. The first site, a parcel at 726 Kaighn Avenue in the Bergen Square neighborhood, was home to an electroplating facility that shut down in 2004.

"The property has been vacant and a blight on our community for decades, attracting nothing but trash and drug activity," Camden Mayor Frank Moran said in a press release.

The Kaighn Avenue property will be cleaned up to create a new industrial park at the site, with the hopes of bringing new manufacturing jobs to Camden.

The second Camden site is the Camden Laboratories site at 1667 Davis Street that has been vacant since 2008. The city plans to clean the soil and groundwater at the nearly 4 acre large site before making the property an expansion of Whitman Park.

"The presence of the dilapidated structure has long been an eyesore next to the adjacent Whitman Park recreational fields and a nuisance to the surrounding residential neighborhoods," Moran said. "Our vision calls for the extension of the recreational fields in order to provide greater usage by the community."

Michael Sol Warren may be reached at mwarren@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MSolDub. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

An international pipeline. A scandalous photograph. Racial taunting. See which New Jersey sports scandals over the past decade have resonated the most.

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The prosecutor's office won't charge the officer, but the U.S. Attorney's Office is looking into the case. Watch video

Surveillance video showing Camden County Police Officer Nicholas Romantino punching a man 12 times in the head sparked outrage when it became public in February. Even the police chief said he was 'extremely disturbed' by it.

But Romantino and a few other officers apparently had a laugh about the violent arrest of Edward Minguela just a few minutes later, according to body camera footage from the night of the Feb. 22 arrest.

Obtained through a public records request, the video shows Romantino showing his swollen knuckles to an officer who says of Minguela, "That guy. He's always giving us a hard time, that guy."

"Not anymore," Romantino quipped, eliciting a few chuckles from his colleagues.

Minguela, 32, of Camden was arrested after officers responded to reports of a man with a gun. However, no gun was found on or near Minguela after he was taken into custody, authorities have said.

Minguela has threatened to sue police and the county prosecutor for alleged civil rights violations over the police stop on the street in the Fairview section of Camden, his attorney, Devon Jacob of Pennsylvania, has said. 

Jacob has demanded the prosecutor's office drop Minguela's charges of resisting arrest and obstruction. Those charges, however, remain active in municipal court. 

The Camden County Prosecutor's Office said last week that no charges will be filed against Romantino, because video of the incident shows Minguela was resisting by pulling his arms away from Romantino's grasp. However, he remains on unpaid leave as the police department conducts its own internal affairs investigation.

Minguela told NJ Advance Media that he was walking away from Fairview Liquor on Collings Road around 8 p.m. Feb. 22 when officers ran up to him with guns drawn. Someone had called 911 to report a man with a gun and gave a spot-on description of Minguela, his vehicle and another man he was with.

Police searched for a weapon, but none was ever found.

The video shows Minguela put his hands up when ordered to do so, but when Romantino tries to put Minguela's arms behind his back, he appears to pull away.

Romantino takes him to the ground, tries to cuff him and then punches him nine times in the head, each blow landing with a thud in between his yells of "put your hands behind your back!" He orders him again to put his hands behind his back and delivers three more blows before cuffing Minguela, who starts to wail, "Why you hitting me like that bro?"

After walking Minguela over to a cruiser, Romantino pats him down. The video shows Minguela keeping up a steady dialogue, and at one point accusing Romantino of kicking him after Minguela called him a pejorative term.

Once inside the cruiser, Minguela continued to ask the driver, Officer Peter Sanchez, why he was arrested. "You'll have to ask the officer that arrested you," he replies.

The body camera videos also capture Romantino telling Sgt. Andrew Fegley that Minguela "requested to go to the hospital after I roughed his dome up a little bit."

Sanchez is rerouted to the hospital by Fegley, the video shows. The officers turn off their body cameras at the hospital -- which a police spokesman said is in compliance with privacy rules -- so it's impossible to verify the next part of Minguela's story.

He said that an officer told him that if he declined medical care, they'd issue him a summons for resisting arrest and obstruction, but that if he sought treatment, they would also add a more serious charge of assault and battery on a police officer.

Minguela said he took the offer and left without treatment, but went back to the hospital the next day. His lawyer said he had a concussion and a fractured wrist.

Jacob said it is a conflict of interest for the same prosecutor's office that is trying to convict Minguela for resisting arrest to also investigate whether Romantino's use of force was lawful.

He and two local NAACP branches have called for a federal or state law enforcement agency to conduct the investigation instead. In issuing an OPRA request denial in March, the county revealed that the U.S. Attorney's Office was looking into the case.

Jacob has also questioned whether the prosecutor's office is looking into who anonymously called 911 to report that Minguela had a gun.

On the body camera videos, officers can be heard saying that this is the third such call they've received about Minguela and they need to figure out who is calling. One officer speculates that the calls are because someone "has it out for him."

Court records show Minguela has been charged with crimes in Superior Court 11 times over the last 13 years, but most charges were transferred to municipal or family court, records show. He was convicted of resisting arrest in 2017 and of charges related to drug distribution in 2013 and 2005.

Romantino has been on the force for two years and earns a salary of $38,864. 

According to police spokesman Dan Keashen, two officers who were peripherally involved in Minguela's arrest are on paid leave while the internal affairs investigation is completed.

Rebecca Everett may be reached at reverett@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @rebeccajeverett. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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Trees designated 'champions' are scattered throughout the Garden State in yards and fields, even cemeteries.

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The head of the National Republican Congressional Committee called the 2nd Congressional District "a recruiting hole." Watch video

WASHINGTON -- The head of the committee tasked with electing House Republicans acknowledged that his party has failed to recruit a strong candidate to succeed retiring Republican Rep. Frank LoBiondo in South Jersey.

"The LoBiondo seat is still a recruiting hole for us," said Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. "That's one of the few recruiting holes we have across the country."

LoBiondo, R-2nd Dist., announced his retirement after 24 years in the House, and the Cook Political Report, a Washington-based publication that tracks congressional races, said the district now leans Democratic.

Stivers, speaking to Washington-based reporters from local news outlets, including NJ Advance Media, acknowledged that the Democratic candidate could be the front-runner.

"That one probably should be at least a tossup or lean their way," Stivers said. "I wish we had a better recruit in the LoBiondo seat but we don't."

Looking at the anti-Trump wave in N.J.

Democrats have recruited state Sen. Jeff Van Drew, D-Cape May, to run, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently named him as one of their candidates most likely to flip a GOP-held seat.

He raised $488,845 through March 31, with $456,028 to spend.

"As we've seen all across the country, Republicans cannot find candidates to run under their unpopular agenda," DCCC spokesman Evan Lukaske said. "Nowhere is that more true than in New Jersey. With his independent mindset and focus on finding common ground, Senator Van Drew will be an excellent representative for this community."

The DCCC's support of Van Drew, one of the most conservative Democrats in Trenton, hasn't sat well with progressive activists.

The Collective Political Action Committee, a PAC created to elect black candidates, is backing retired schoolteacher Tanzie Youngblood. She raised $65,309, lent her campaign $23,000, and had $14,102 in her campaign bank account as of March 31.

Another Democrat, former congressional aide Will Cunningham, brought in $51,951 and reported cash on hand of $45,986.

On the Republican side, only engineer Hirsh Singh, who lost a bid for GOP gubernatorial nomination last year, amassed any significant campaign funds and that was because he dug deep into his own pocket. He raised $55,665, while giving or loaning his campaign about the same amount, $56,685. He entered April with $82,554 to spend.

The other Republicans running are former state Assemblyman Sam Fiocchi, R-Cumberland; Robert Turkavage, a former FBI agent and two-time unsuccessful U.S. Senate candidate; and lawyer Seth Grossman. 

Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.

Pets throughout New Jersey await adoption from rescues and shelters.

Here is this week's collection of some of the dogs and cats in need of adoption in New Jersey.

We are now accepting dogs and cats to appear in the gallery from nonprofit shelters and rescues throughout New Jersey.

If a group wishes to participate in this weekly gallery on nj.com, please contact Greg Hatala at ghatala@starledger.com or call 973-836-4922.

Greg Hatala may be reached at ghatala@starledger.com. Follow him on Twitter @GregHatala. Find Greg Hatala on Facebook.

A look at this week's can't-miss games from across the state