WoW! 4.3.2009 TRENTON — Lawyers for 16 students caught up in the “ghost grades’’ scandal of 2007 filed suit yesterday against the Trenton School District, alleging the fiasco denied them the education they needed to get jobs or go to college.
The students, all 18 or older now, were part of a program for repeating ninth-graders that allegedly kept back pupils eligible for promotion; awarded credit for courses not approved by the state; made some repeat courses they had passed; altered records to show completion of some courses not offered at Sherman; and failed to correct the problems when alerted.
— A suspect in the kicking, punching death of a 9-year-old Camden County boy was captured here yesterday when his car blew up and sputtered to a halt after a 25-mile chase along I-295.
Authorities said the suspect, Vincent Williams, 26 — wanted for killing his girlfriend’s son, Jamar Cruz, in the leafy Camden suburb of Merchantville — was taken into custody after his smoking Mercury rolled off the interstate and came to a halt on northbound Route 130.