Trespassing At Overbrook: Police Apprehend 7 In Essex County

Police from the Essex County Sheriff’s Office apprehended six males and a female for trespassing at the old Essex County Hospital Center grounds in Cedar Grove early on Monday morning.

According to an ECSO spokesman, police arrested the alleged trespassers - ages 19 through 23, from Jersey City, Union City and Bayonne – shortly after 1 a.m.

They were issued summonses for defiant trespass and released, authorities stated.

Monday’s arrests are the latest in a long-running series of incidents in the area, which has long been a favorite urban exploration site for local youth.

• See related article: More Trespassing Arrests At Old Essex County Hospital Grounds

“There’s some mystique about the place, because of ghost-hunting shows and [news] articles,” Sheriff Fontoura told Patch. “But we know there’s nothing up there.”

Fontoura said that not all trespassing activity at Overbrook has been motivated by mere sightseeing curiosity. For example, police have caught trespassers attempting to remove copper pipes from buildings at the defunct hospital center grounds.

“Our best defense against vandalism and other criminal activity would be our ongoing vigilant patrols on the site, and the very large assistance we receive from Cedar Grove and Verona,” Fontoura said. “Our ‘no trespass’ signs are not always followed. Sometimes they are, and sometimes they aren’t.”

The ECSO typically sees upticks in trespassing at Overbrook around Halloween and during the summer, Fontoura stated.

So far this year, Essex County Sheriff’s officers have caught over 80 alleged trespassers at the site and have racked up 9 burglary and defiant trespass charges, 59 defiant trespass arrest charges, one alcohol possession charge and one resisting arrest charge, in addition to making 14 “warning only” trespassing apprehensions.

Fontoura stated that the sheriff’s department is also looking to put up cameras if criminal activity begins to “get out of hand,” something the agency has done in the past.

“I don’t know if we could put up permanent ones, but we have portable surveillance cameras that we can put up there and move around different places,” Fontoura noted.

Photo by Wheeler Antabanez via YouTube