Robert Stolarik for The New York Times
Members of the Jersey City Police Department investigated the scene of a shooting between a shotgun-wielding suspect and the police.
By LIZ ROBBINS and CHRISTINE HAUSER
Published: July 16, 2009
Five Jersey City police officers were shot and wounded — two critically — as they tried to arrest a shotgun-wielding suspect early Thursday, officials said. The first officer was hit during a predawn encounter with the man, and the others were hit in a furious shootout in a building apartment and hallway that erupted when they tried to arrest the suspect, officials said.
Both the first suspect and a second one, described by some as a woman, were killed in the gun battle at 24 Reed Street near Journal Square, the officials said.
One critically injured officers was shot in the face, the other in the neck.
The officer shot in the face had “no signs of life” when he was brought to the Jersey City Medical Center, according to the hospital’s chief of surgery, Nathaniel Holmes, but was steadily improving in the early afternoon. The officer shot in the neck was in surgery and doing well, the Jersey City mayor, Jerramiah T. Healy, said.
Mr. Healy called the incident a “terrible gunfight.” Of the other officers who were shot, one was hit in his bullet-proof vest, another in the arm, and the third was grazed in the leg by a bullet and already released. Several others had minor injuries. The police would not release the names of the officers.
According to another Jersey City law official who requested anonymity because the case was still under investigation, the two people dead are suspected of conducting a robbery in Jersey City with shotguns in June and were under surveillance. The Jersey City police chief, Thomas J. Comey, would not confirm their identities or their gender.
“These individuals were being sought by our department for a major crime,” Chief Comey said, declining to comment on the crime. “This individual came fully ready to go to war with us. This is not a normal shotgun, this is not a street weapon, this is one meant to hunt nothing other than men, and he took it out on our police officer.”
The horrific scene unfolded in a period of about seven hours in New Jersey’s second-largest city that sits in the reflection of Manhattan. Glittering waterfront condominiums rub up against rundown areas like the gritty corner of Reed Street and Bergen Avenue, a neighborhood of three- and four-story buildings interspersed with empty lots of overgrown grass, bodegas and beauty salons that was witness to warfare: two separate bursts of heavy gunfire, erupting about an hour apart.
Chief Comey said that two officers had been sitting in a parked car at about 11 p.m. Wednesday near what they believed to be the suspect’s car when a man dressed in a cloak that appeared to be priest’s garb walked toward the car.
After driving up alongside the vehicle, the officer on the passenger side jumped out to apprehend the suspect. But concealed under the suspect’s cloak was a pump-action shotgun and a strap of ammunition. The suspect pivoted, threw off his cloak and unloaded two rounds of ammunition.
“As he realized we were on him, he shed an outer garment to make sure that he could pull the shotgun up so he could go to war almost instantly, go to battle,” Chief Comey said of the suspect.
The shotgun blast missed the officer on foot, but the pellets shattered the windshield of the police car, grazing the leg of the officer at the wheel. The gunman then fled into the apartment at 24 Reed Street, and the officers called for emergency backup. Officers from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, under a cooperation agreement, joined the Jersey City police.
The building was evacuated, and about an hour after the first shooting, a team of officers entered.
As soon as they started to break down the door into the apartment, one suspect started firing, his bullets piercing the apartment’s walls and through the halfway open door. The first officer inside the door was struck in the neck. The second officer who, was right behind him, was shot in the face, Chief Comey said.
A furious exchange of bullets followed, and the two suspects were fatally wounded. Officers hurried to carry their wounded colleagues down the flight of stairs to rush them to the hospital.
A little more than three hours later, Dr. Holmes, at the New Jersey Medical Center, was standing among other hospital and law enforcement officials expressing his amazement. The officer shot in the face had no vital signs at first. “So the fact that we can talk about him being in surgery is a minor miracle,” Dr. Holmes said.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/nyregion/17jersey.html?em
Members of the Jersey City Police Department investigated the scene of a shooting between a shotgun-wielding suspect and the police.
By LIZ ROBBINS and CHRISTINE HAUSER
Published: July 16, 2009
Five Jersey City police officers were shot and wounded — two critically — as they tried to arrest a shotgun-wielding suspect early Thursday, officials said. The first officer was hit during a predawn encounter with the man, and the others were hit in a furious shootout in a building apartment and hallway that erupted when they tried to arrest the suspect, officials said.
Both the first suspect and a second one, described by some as a woman, were killed in the gun battle at 24 Reed Street near Journal Square, the officials said.
One critically injured officers was shot in the face, the other in the neck.
The officer shot in the face had “no signs of life” when he was brought to the Jersey City Medical Center, according to the hospital’s chief of surgery, Nathaniel Holmes, but was steadily improving in the early afternoon. The officer shot in the neck was in surgery and doing well, the Jersey City mayor, Jerramiah T. Healy, said.
Mr. Healy called the incident a “terrible gunfight.” Of the other officers who were shot, one was hit in his bullet-proof vest, another in the arm, and the third was grazed in the leg by a bullet and already released. Several others had minor injuries. The police would not release the names of the officers.
According to another Jersey City law official who requested anonymity because the case was still under investigation, the two people dead are suspected of conducting a robbery in Jersey City with shotguns in June and were under surveillance. The Jersey City police chief, Thomas J. Comey, would not confirm their identities or their gender.
“These individuals were being sought by our department for a major crime,” Chief Comey said, declining to comment on the crime. “This individual came fully ready to go to war with us. This is not a normal shotgun, this is not a street weapon, this is one meant to hunt nothing other than men, and he took it out on our police officer.”
The horrific scene unfolded in a period of about seven hours in New Jersey’s second-largest city that sits in the reflection of Manhattan. Glittering waterfront condominiums rub up against rundown areas like the gritty corner of Reed Street and Bergen Avenue, a neighborhood of three- and four-story buildings interspersed with empty lots of overgrown grass, bodegas and beauty salons that was witness to warfare: two separate bursts of heavy gunfire, erupting about an hour apart.
Chief Comey said that two officers had been sitting in a parked car at about 11 p.m. Wednesday near what they believed to be the suspect’s car when a man dressed in a cloak that appeared to be priest’s garb walked toward the car.
After driving up alongside the vehicle, the officer on the passenger side jumped out to apprehend the suspect. But concealed under the suspect’s cloak was a pump-action shotgun and a strap of ammunition. The suspect pivoted, threw off his cloak and unloaded two rounds of ammunition.
“As he realized we were on him, he shed an outer garment to make sure that he could pull the shotgun up so he could go to war almost instantly, go to battle,” Chief Comey said of the suspect.
The shotgun blast missed the officer on foot, but the pellets shattered the windshield of the police car, grazing the leg of the officer at the wheel. The gunman then fled into the apartment at 24 Reed Street, and the officers called for emergency backup. Officers from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, under a cooperation agreement, joined the Jersey City police.
The building was evacuated, and about an hour after the first shooting, a team of officers entered.
As soon as they started to break down the door into the apartment, one suspect started firing, his bullets piercing the apartment’s walls and through the halfway open door. The first officer inside the door was struck in the neck. The second officer who, was right behind him, was shot in the face, Chief Comey said.
A furious exchange of bullets followed, and the two suspects were fatally wounded. Officers hurried to carry their wounded colleagues down the flight of stairs to rush them to the hospital.
A little more than three hours later, Dr. Holmes, at the New Jersey Medical Center, was standing among other hospital and law enforcement officials expressing his amazement. The officer shot in the face had no vital signs at first. “So the fact that we can talk about him being in surgery is a minor miracle,” Dr. Holmes said.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/nyregion/17jersey.html?em
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