FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP — Tamika Darden, 35, who grew up in Matawan but now lives in Newark, has lived in fear for a decade. She thought there was a warrant in her name for a hit-and-run car accident caused by someone who had borrowed her car, she said.


"I haven't driven for 10 years because I was scared," she said. "I was too scared to go to the police station to find out."
On Thursday, at First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens in Franklin at the Fugitive Safe Surrender program, she discovered no warrant exists.
"It was like one big sigh of relief," she said, adding she now plans to buy a truck for her birthday in April.
Nearly 4,000 people like Darden turned themselves in during the program, which wrapped up Saturday.
The four-day program helped bring the number of people who have surrendered statewide over the past two years to 10,249, law-enforcement officials announced Monday.
Programs were held in Newark last November and in Camden in November 2008.
State Attorney General Paula Dow thanked the thousands who turned themselves in last week.
"The state of New Jersey is a better place and better off," she said during a news conference Monday at the church.
From Wednesday through Saturday, individuals wanted by state law-enforcement agencies on nonviolent felony or municipal warrants, and some more serious offenders, turned themselves in at the church and were processed at the nearby McKinley Community School in New Brunswick.
About 20 people out of the 3,901 who surrendered were taken into custody.
Thousands of others saw their cases resolved quickly and for far less than the total of fines and fees they owed.
Gregory Banks lost his job as a fork-lift operator for a New Brunswick food distributor after injuring his leg two years ago.
It was around that time that Banks, now 53, discovered he had an active warrant for his arrest.
Banks, who was caught driving without insurance in 1998, still had not cleared his name — until Wednesday.
"I felt like I was on the "Price is Right,' " the Irvington man said.