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Nilajah N. Sumter, 36, of Norwalk, drove around the road closure on Boulevard and "continued north at a high rate of speed" around 11 a.m. Thursday, Detective Kevin Van Saders told Daily Voice.
Sgt. Christopher Vinci, who was working the traffic detail, got out of his vehicle in an attempt to stop her, Van Saders said, but she sped past him on the wrong side of the road and smashed her car into a Lexus driven by a 70-year-old Point Pleasant man.
Paramedics and ambulances were dispatched to the scene, as were borough firefighters, who extracted the elderly driver from his car.
The Lexus driver was taken to Holy Name Medical Center with injuries that police said weren't life-threatening.
Sumter, meanwhile, got into another vehicle after several attempts at others, Van Saders said.
The motorist forced Sumter out of her car, and Vinci was joined by Officer Darrell Marshall in catching her on Greve Street, the detective said.
There, Sumter kicked and spit on Marshall, he said.
Sumter, who used to live in New Milford, admitted being under the influence of drugs after officers found her carrying heroin, Van Saders said.
She was brought to Bergen Regional Medical Center, where a judge ordered her held in the custody of sheriff's officers pending transfer to the county jail.
Police later discovered that Sumter took the vehicle without the owner's consent.
They charged her with assault by auto, aggravated assault on a police officer, resisting arrest, obstruction of justice and drug offenses, and was given summonses for several motor vehicle offenses -- among them, DWI, reckless driving, leaving the scene of an accident with personal injury and driving while on the suspended list.
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