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Elmwood Park police officer thwarts convenience store holdup

SHOUT OUT: “It could have gone in a very different direction,” Elmwood Park Police Chief Michael Foligno said after one of his officers stopped a convenience store armed robbery yesterday.

Photo Credit: Courtesy BERGEN COUNTY SHERIFF
Photo Credit: Courtesy BERGEN COUNTY SHERIFF
Photo Credit: Courtesy BERGEN COUNTY SHERIFF

Officer Michael Goldyn knew something was wrong as he drove past the 7-Eleven at the corner of Market Street and Boulevard before dawn and spotted a store clerk and two strangers near the front entrance.

The employee “made eye contact with him as the officer went by,” Foligno said, so the officer turned his cruiser around.

Officer Michael Goldyn

The would-be robbers were pushing the clerk inside and trying to close the door as Goldyn approached, the chief said.

That’s when one of them — identified as 30-year-old Angel Caban of the Bronx — “became extremely agitated and began threatening to kill the employee in front of the officer,” he said.

The clerk told Goldyn that both men were upset because he refused to let them used expired coupons. Both punched him, he said, and Caban attacked him with a box cutter, he said.

Goldyn summoned backup, took both into custody and found them carrying merchandise stolen from the store, Foligno said.

Caban later assaulted another officer while being fingerprinted and photographed at police headquarters and had to be restrained, he said.

He was being held on $200,000 bail in the Bergen County Jail, charged with:

  • armed robbery
  • two illegal weapons possession counts
  • aggravated assault
  • terroristic threats
  • assault on a police officer

The second man, 43-year-old John Carl Collmer Jr. of Lebanon, TN, was being held on $50,000 bail in the county lockup, charged with armed robbery.

The clerk was unharmed.

EPPD

“Officer Michael Goldyn did an outstanding job of preventing a potential tragedy by alert and proactive police work,” Foligno said. “[It was] old-fashioned police work at its best.

“He remained composed and brought the incident to a safe conclusion,” the chief said. “He should be and will be commended for a job well done.

“It could have gone in a very different direction.”

MUGSHOTS: Courtesy BERGEN COUNTY SHERIFF

 

 

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