Michael Mordaga
North Jersey dot com
When Michael Mordaga was a Hackensack detective, he was nearly killed when a suspected drug dealer rammed his car into him and two other officers during a drug stakeout on May 26, 1989.
With Mordaga, then 34 years old, snagged on the hood, the driver sped off. Mordaga reached for his gun and shot the driver through the windshield. The car crashed into a pole, sending Mordaga airborne and into a wall, leaving half his torso purple and blood gushing from his scalp. He thought he might die.
So it was troubling when Mordaga, now Hackensack’s civilian police director, recently got a call from the Virginia State Police telling him that the man who nearly took his life 24 years ago had been arrested with handguns. Authorities said Edward Carter Irvin, who served 12 years for attempted homicide in the incident that nearly killed Mordaga, had bought three guns in Virginia, which is known for its lax gun laws, by changing his name and denying he had ever been convicted of a felony.
For Mordaga, the phone call from Virginia was more than a reminder of his brush with death. It was proof, he said, of the need for a national fingerprinting system to screen gun buyers.
