Newark mayor is superman, apparently

Corey Booker, who's been making quite a name for himself around these parts, runs into burning buildings to save his constituents.

One resident of the burned building, Coley Whittaker, 67, a retired truck driver, said that Mr. Booker and his bodyguards came charging into the building telling the residents to get out. Mr. Whittaker said he did not even know the structure was on fire.

“He said, ‘Everybody get out of here; y’all got a fire here,’ ” Mr. Whittaker said. “And I came by my door and he was right.”

Mr. Whittaker and his landlady then briefly tried to put out the fire before deciding to leave. The woman the mayor saved was in another part of the building.

“He probably saved everybody’s life,” Mr. Whittaker said of the mayor. “If he hadn’t came up there, we would never have known it was on fire.”

Jacquline Williams, 64, the mother of the woman Mr. Booker saved, was still stunned on Friday morning. “I don’t know what to say,” she said. “Thank God, thank Cory Booker, thank his detectives.”

She said her daughter would most likely come home from the hospital on Saturday.

Detective Rodriguez, who has been on Mayor Booker’s security detail since June, said Mr. Booker rushed into the burning home still wearing his suit and tie. He said Mr. Booker followed him to the second floor, where they heard the woman’s cry from the other side of the burning kitchen. Small explosions sounded and flames covered the walls and ceiling, he said.

“She yelled she was in the back room,” the detective said.

Mr. Booker tried to go through the burning kitchen, but Detective Rodriguez said he held him back and the two “exchanged words.”

“I said: ‘I can’t let you in; that’s my job. I have to keep you from danger,’ ” Detective Rodriguez said.

Again Mr. Booker tried to charge into the flames and again Rodriguez restrained him, this time by his belt. 

The two had words a second time.

“It was probably a two-minute altercation but it seemed like longer, he basically said to me, ‘If I don’t go in, this lady’s going to die,’ ” the detective said.