Former NHLer Patrick Coté in prison after admitting he robbed 2 banks in Province of Québec

Patrick Coté

QUEBEC —

Well this might be the most bizarre story we have ever had on NewJersey-Devils.com — former NHLer Patrick Coté, who was drafted in 1995 by the Dallas Stars, is in prison for 30 months after he admitted to police he’d robbed two Quebec-based banks, Montreal’s CJAD 800 radio reports.

According to CJAD, Coté had a run-in with police after his car broke down. Thing is, he was driving a stolen car, the report says.

After he went in for questioning, he admitted the two robberies to police.

This isn’t Coté’s first run-in with the law either, according to reports.

He also has convictions on drug charges, armed-assault charges among others.

CBS Sports says Coté’s best season was 1998-99, when he had 2 points in 70 games for Dallas (1g, 1a, 2p). He also played for Nashville and Edmonton and was known more as an enforcer.

What a falling off was there!

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Finding God in death is such a great mystery & challenge

By Kevin Canessa Jr.
Publisher

JERSEY CITY —

You’ll forgive me for what I am about to say and write. But it happens to me every time someone is senselessly murdered. And like clockwork, it happened to me again, today, as I watched online the funeral for Jersey City Police Officer Melvin Santiago.

It was the homily (sermon) where it really hit me — as it often does. And it hit hard when I heard the Rev. Kevin Carter, chaplain to the Jersey City Police Department, say it.

The Rev. Kevin Carter, delivering Santiago’s homily.

Speaking to Santiago’s family, Carter said:

“The heart of  God is with you now and for years to come. The heart of the church is with you. The heart of the department is with you. Melvin is with God, now, in complete joy — and he’s alive and well with him.”

It’s that last part I struggle with so often. And it always happens in homilies from Catholic priests.

Now rightfully, Catholics see funerals as a celebration of the deceased’s life, not death. But I find it so hard to believe it when we’re asked to believe that a dead loved one is with God — and that God will be there and present for the family.

And you probably guessed where I am going now — and it begs the question every time: If God is with Melvin now that he’s dead — and God is with Melvin’s family in their most trying days, where, may I ask, was God when Melvin faced his executor … simply by exiting a radio car?

Where was God to keep Melvin safe when a man lay in wait to ambush him?

Where was God to keep the executioner the hell away from Melvin or any other forms of innocent life?

Where was God when this murderous thug decided to go to a Walgreens to lure cops there, only to kill one of them?

Steven Fulop, mayor of Jersey City, before the funeral Mass began.

Where was God when another life, the murderer, was taken away, as well?

I struggle with this so often. It reminds me of the time right after Sept. 11, 2001. So many people — including those who were lax — returned to church and to God after the attacks.

“While there will be many who ask, ‘Where was God on 9/11 while close to 3,000 people died,’ we say, instead, ‘God was right there to ensure 27,000 others escaped those buildings,’” priests would say in homilies in the days, weeks and even months after the attacks. “God was right there, extending his hand to those people — and to the first responders, to get them out of the building safely.”

At first, hearing those sobering words was comforting. Because it is indeed true that on Sept. 11, 2001, so many more people got out than were trapped inside the Twin Towers. But there also a comes a time — call it a crisis of faith, or whatever it is you wish to call it — where those words ring very hollow and very inefficiently.

Because there comes a time where I personally asked myself, “Oh really? God was there to get 27,000 people out? Well, how did he decide who the 3,000 were who didn’t get out? Why didn’t he extend his hands to all the people in the buildings? Why didn’t he use his loving kindness to ensure the terrorists didn’t do what they did in the first place?

Santiago’s immediate family leaving the church.

This is a crisis I am afraid I will face forever — especially when a 23-year-old police officer, in the prime of his young life — is taken away so violently.

I understand it was Carter’s job to offer comfort. I understand it’s important to SAY that God is there with the family.

But I can’t, even on days when my faith is at its highest levels, continue to listen to people say God is with you, family of Melvin Santiago, when God was absolutely nowhere to be found at 4 a.m. Sunday.

This is a crisis of faith, indeed, for me. And I often wonder how many others out there — including those reading this — feel the same way. How do we call upon the same God in times of grief and expect he’s listening, when we’re in moments of despair in the first place?

We’ll never quite know, that is, of course, unless we do get to some form of an after-life … heaven or wherever it is.

I so want to believe God is here with me right now as I write this, thinking, “There you go, again, Kevin, doubting me like an everyday Thomas.” I really do want to believe that.

I really do want to believe God is looking over Melvin’s mom, step-dad, brother and step-sister (whom I just found out yesterday, I know personally, as her former teacher).

But you see, the thing is, I can’t right now. Maybe you can’t either.

And it all leaves me with the most basic of questions, one we find ourselves asking so often at times like these.

Why?

A very touching moment

Officer Santiago was a Yankees fan, but he was also a fan of the Philadelphia Eagles. As the recessional commenced at St. Aloysius Church today, on West Side Avenue, the cantor sang “On Eagles Wings.”

It’s a common Catholic song for funerals, but it was ever poignant for the Eagles’ fan, Santiago, as he was taken to his final resting place.

As his step-dad recessed down the aisle at the beautiful church, someone (not sure who it was) extended his hands with a green and white jersey.

It was a Philadelphia Eagles jersey.

And the name on the back.

Santiago.

All while “On Eagles Wings” played magnificently.

Maybe God was there after all.

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News 12’s Sean Bergin was suspended, had pay docked, then quit after remarks go viral; he tells Fox News why he quit

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Brief video tribute for Melvin Santiago from JCTV

Nicely done.


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Things never change in Jersey City because animal, low-life thugs are allowed to run the damn place

By Kevin Canessa Jr.
Publisher

It’s my City.

I grew up there.

I am  old enough to know what the place was like when we left in 1985 and I was 11. And now, Jersey City, my place of birth, the place I love, the spot I visit whenever I come back from Florida to visit, is controlled by savage animals. It’s overridden with disgraceful human beings who can only settle things by killing their enemies. It’s no longer a place I am proud to call my hometown.

The latest, the death of 23-year-old Police Officer Melvin Santiago, who by all accounts was a wonderful young man who wanted to make a difference in his community. He was on the job for just six months.

It all happened this morning at around 4 a.m. when he was called to the 24-hour Walgreens at Kennedy Boulevard and Communipaw Avenue, in a neighborhood most wouldn’t dare venture out into after the sun goes down.

The report: a robbery in progress. As he got out of the police car he was a passenger in, the suspect, whose name we will never use, shot him in the head, killing him. He becomes the 33rd Jersey City police officer to die in the line of duty.

According to some reports, Santiago asked to work the toughest neighborhoods in Jersey City after he finished the police academy. Imagine that. While he might have asked to be assigned to an easier place — like the Heights or Downtown, he instead asked — on purpose — to be assigned to the district that includes Communipaw and the Boulevard.

That’s how much he wanted to make a difference.

And it cost him his life.

What perhaps makes this story even more disturbing is that the suspect is alleged to have beaten an armed security officer before he fired at Santiago. He is alleged to have stolen his gun. And then, in as brazen a way as possible, he did nothing else until police arrived.

He did what he did, that savage animal, to draw police there to engage them in a gun battle.

And in as barbaric an act as is humanly possible, the moment Santiago opened his cruiser door to ensure everyone else’s safety, the suspect opened fire.

He never stood a chance.

What’s incredibly upsetting here is that no matter who leads the city — Jerry Healy, Steve Fulop, whomever — the results of crime in the city remain the same. Innocent people, many of whom are not police officers, are losing their lives simply because they live in Jersey City and have no place else to go or turn to.

They are dying because they take their trash out and bullets fly.

They are dying because they live in neighborhoods where the police don’t rule things, but instead, they live in neighborhoods that are flooded with drug-dealing low-lives who have no regard for human life.

They are dying because they want to try to pretend to not be petrified of where they live.

And no matter what any leader does, or tries, it never, ever gets better.

A Google Maps image of the Walgreens where Melvin Santiago was murdered.

It never gets better because the same residents who lose family members violently are unwilling and unable to open their mouths when they see a crime committed and know who committed the crime. They simply cannot because if they do, they’ll be next.

It never gets better because the city is grossly under-patrolled. There are only 800 or so officers on the streets of the state’s second-largest city.

It never gets better because leadership will not do all that it takes to ensure the streets ARE patrolled properly — by radio cars, and foot-patrol units, and bicycle units.

It never gets better because no one seems to be willing to grow the balls to make it better.

The mayor can say all he wants that he wants to be tough on crime. And yet a year into his first term, nothing has improved.

The residents can cry out every single day about the conditions in Jersey City — and they can do it until they’re blue in the face — but until they’re willing to speak out and help to put away the thugs who control this city, nothing will improve.

Steve Fulop, mayor of Jersey City

I never expect the day will come, in my lifetime, that things will be better on “The Hill” as it’s known, in Jersey City.  Because I have no faith in the leaders. And I have even less faith the people will step it up and start talking.

I want to be wrong. I so want to be wrong. I want the city I love so much to return to how it was decades ago, when my grandmother and grandfather saw it fit to raise a family of seven there, without a second thought that maybe it would be better elsewhere.

I want the killing to stop.

But I can’t hold my breath while waiting, because every time it happens — like it did with Marc Dinardo or Domenick Infantes before Santiago — I always say I hope and pray this is the last … and it never is.

I woke this morning and learned that Melvin Santiago was violently taken from this world. It shook me then — and it still has me sick to my stomach. He didn’t need to die. Nope. Not one bit. But he did.

And that’s because Jersey City is run and controlled by savage animals.

And this time, I can’t say I hope this never happens again.

I know, not too far from now, it will.

And it will again and again and again.

And again.

Rest in peace, Police Officer Melvin Santiago. You will be forever missed, even by those who never knew you.

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