NY teen charged with making hoax call that initiated NJ Turnpike stop of minority teens

Teen charged in hoax 911 call that led to NJ stop

NEWARK, N.J. — A hoax 911 call was behind a November stop of a van full of minority teenagers that raised concerns over racial profiling, state police said Monday, adding that they’ve determined who made the call: one of the teens in the van.

Rodney Tanzymore, 19, was arrested Monday at his Queens, N.Y., home and charged with causing a false public alarm. It was not immediately clear whether he had retained a lawyer as authorities sought to extradite him to New Jersey. Police did not discuss a motive.

Tanzymore was among a group of 11 Queens teenagers and three chaperones returning Nov. 21 from a visit to Howard University in Washington that was organized by the group Safe Space NYC, a social service agency that works with disadvantaged children to prevent foster care placement.

State police said the caller, who gave his name as David Smith and called from a cell phone that could only dial 911, claimed that passengers had brandished handguns at a turnpike rest stop.

Troopers at the scene drew their rifles after being advised by a supervisor to treat the stop as “high risk.”

Police surveillance tapes released in December show the van’s occupants being evacuated from the vehicle at gunpoint, handcuffed, and told to sit on the guardrail on the side of the turnpike in Hamilton Township.

Members of the group said at the time that the way the officers had approached them with weapons drawn had been frightening, and press reports quoted some as questioning whether the stop was racially motivated.

State police maintain that the van stop had been prompted by the 911 call, which had provided a description of the vehicle, and that police had used proper protocol.

“From day one, we were comfortable with the fact that our troopers acted professionally and responded appropriately based on the information they were given,” State Police Capt. Gerald Lewis said.

The stop came about two months after the end of more than a decade of federal oversight of the state police. The court-ordered oversight was the result of the shootings of three unarmed men, all minorities, during a turnpike traffic stop 12 years ago.

The charge Tanzymore faces carries up to five years in prison.

“A false report such as this endangers everyone involved and is indeed a reckless act, one that our office will not tolerate,” New Jersey’s acting attorney general, Paula Dow, said in a statement.

Safe Space NYC was upset to learn that a group member had called 911, president and CEO Christine Molnar said in a statement, adding that the allegation “only underscores how troubled many of the youths we work with are — and the reasons why our programs are so needed.”

She said Tanzymore showed promise; he recently earned his GED and has a job.

“One mistake should not diminish the great strides most of our kids have made,” she said.