Newark had a bloody last few weeks, with three vicious shootings adding to the rapidly climbing list of Brick City homicide victims. It started off on August 15, when Jihad Springer, 21, was killed with a single gunshot to the chest a few blocks from Downtown Newark, and left for dead on the street. While Springer’s death was portrayed in the media as the average murder in Newark, the killing two days later garnered massive press attention.
Early in the morning hours of August 17, 14-year-old Keith Calhoun was hanging out with his friends on a corner on 12th and 7th, all members of the Bloods. While they were congregated, two men approached them, beginning to argue with them over a girl. It was allegedly Isiah Hemphill, 18, another Blood, who pulled out a handgun and fired into the group of youths, striking Calhoun in the back and killing him.
The press coverage was heavy, with Newark Mayor Cory Booker making statements saying he was going to clamp down on crime, and articles about the lives of both boys involved, and their families. The next week, after Albert Allen, 24, was murdered in South Ward, police began to make extensive arrests, confiscating pistols, three pounds of weed, cash, and a Mac-10 submachine gun. However, their arrests seemed to be out of coincidences – running across an armed robbery, being in the right place at the right time and witnessing a gangland gun battle – and three pounds of weed and several firearms is only the top of the surface in Newark.
Also, not too far outside of Newark, a robbery in Kearny ended tragically August 18, when two armed robbers burst into Rachel Jewelers in Kearny and murdered the proprietor in front of his children. The suspects fired a killing shot into 48-year-old Xavier Egoavil’s forehead after riddling his body with bullets, and fled the scene, scarring the peaceful town of Kearny with the brutal violence of the crime. Though towns like Kearny, Belleville and Maplewood seem suburban on the outside, it’s just reality that the violence and crime of Newark is only a town away.
Down in Middlesex County, there were reports of a homicide victim found in Cheesequake State Park on August 15, but the Star-Ledger provided no details of the victim. It’s frustrating when the media makes mention of such crimes, and then offers no follow-up; nevertheless, this unidentified victim is still added to the list of victims of homicide in New Jersey.
A few miles north in the Fords section of Woodbridge, intruders burst into a house perpetrating a horrifying double shooting, leaving 29-year-old Angel Vasquez dead, and his sister injured with multiple gunshot wounds. Angel Torres of Perth Amboy, 35, and two 17-year-old minors were arrested and charged in the homicide.
The last two murders this post will cover are the shooting of a 17-year-old young man in the broad daylight of the afternoon in Camden, and the strangling death of a 4-year-old girl by her mother in their house outside Morristown. One is incredibly common – Joshua Rosa is hardly the first teenager to die by the gun in Camden – and the other is not. Mary Gonzalez is Morris County’s first homicide of 2009, the year halfway over. Jenny Erazo-Rodriguez, 33, was arrested and charged in her daughter’s murder, and with the attempted murder of another of her children. It’s unlikely that Joshua Rosa’s killer will ever be brought to justice.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Bergen County's 8th murder, domestic disputes, and a gang war claims another victim
New Jersey has seen three homicides in the last three days, all striking in different parts of the state. Two were men, one was a woman; two were young, one was old; and two were domestic disputes, while the other was a violent episode of an inner-city gang war.
On the morning of August 12, Harold Kendrick Jr., 29 years old, was shot six times while sitting in an idling car in Paterson. The assailant fled; Kendrick’s car rolled forward through the intersection of Temple Avenue and 7th, and crashed into the fence of somebody’s house. He was alive when the police found him, blood running down his shirtless chest, but died before he could be taken to the hospital.
Temple Avenue between 6th and 7th has seen a huge upswing in shootings; the week previously, another young man had been shot in the hip. The Paterson police released a statement attributing the murder to the rivalry of two “groups,” but they stopped short of calling them gangs. No suspects have been arrested so far in the investigation of Kendrick’s murder.
The investigation is no doubt helped by the gunshot detectors and cameras all throughout Paterson; whenever a gun is fired in the city, a GPS locator pinpoints it down to a few feet, and cameras on every streetlight swivel around to inspect the scene. It’s a piece of high-tech crime fighting technology that’s already seen use in East Orange and Newark, and will be incredibly helpful in capturing killers throughout Paterson.
The next day, a 30-year-old woman, Letizia Zindell, was strangled to death in her Toms River house by her former fiancée. Frank Frisco, 36, had just gotten out of jail the day before, and after killing Zindell, hung himself in his own house. Zindell died in a quiet suburban neighborhood, just blocks from the Ocean County Mall, in a tragic reminder that domestic murders can happen anywhere.
In the same vein, on Thursday a 75-year-old Cliffside Park man died after being struck in the head by his daughter. In an argument over a minor issue, Sonia Jecmenica-Castillo, 40, punched Miodrag Jecmenica in the face, causing him to have a fatal heart attack. Jecmenica-Castillo was arrested and charged with the assault; after the autopsy results, she might be charged with manslaughter.
This is Bergen County’s 8th homicide this year. I pay attention to Bergen County statistics more closely, as it’s my own county, and it’s one of the more richer and suburban counties of the state. When I was in high school, the stereotype was that anything in Bergen County below Route 4 was the “ghetto” (Hackensack, Fairview, Teaneck, Lodi, Fort Lee) and everything in Bergen County above Route 4 was the rich, quiet, safe suburbs (Saddle River, Norwood, Mahwah, Alpine, Cresskill). Sure enough, every single one of the eight murders has been south of Route 4.
This homicide in Cliffside Park is the third domestic killing, after a choking in Elmwood Park and stabbing in Little Ferry. A fatal shooting during an armed robbery in Garfield, and a gang-related stabbing in Hackensack are more ominous and vicious types of killings. Three hit-and-runs make up the rest; one being the brutal and reckless killing of an elderly woman by a fleeing felon, and the others more ‘innocent’ hit and runs, if such a phrase can be used.
Because of Bergen County’s status as my home and its fairly moderate amount of murders, at least compared to Newark, it’s an interesting microcosm for homicide in society in general. While Bergen County has the same amount of murders as Union County, it differs in that the latter’s are generally confined to inner-city Elizabeth; Bergen County’s murders are spread out all over. It should be always kept in mind that the chances of becoming a random victim of murder are fairly low; most victims know the attacker, as can be seen in all the domestic and gang-related killings. Murder by total stranger is almost unknown, especially in the inner-ring suburbs of Bergen County. I’ll be continuing to track the murders, with special attention on Bergen County. Be safe.
2009 New Jersey homicide map - http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?gl=us&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=100430255326859206461.00046c0c8bf50984defdd
On the morning of August 12, Harold Kendrick Jr., 29 years old, was shot six times while sitting in an idling car in Paterson. The assailant fled; Kendrick’s car rolled forward through the intersection of Temple Avenue and 7th, and crashed into the fence of somebody’s house. He was alive when the police found him, blood running down his shirtless chest, but died before he could be taken to the hospital.
Temple Avenue between 6th and 7th has seen a huge upswing in shootings; the week previously, another young man had been shot in the hip. The Paterson police released a statement attributing the murder to the rivalry of two “groups,” but they stopped short of calling them gangs. No suspects have been arrested so far in the investigation of Kendrick’s murder.
The investigation is no doubt helped by the gunshot detectors and cameras all throughout Paterson; whenever a gun is fired in the city, a GPS locator pinpoints it down to a few feet, and cameras on every streetlight swivel around to inspect the scene. It’s a piece of high-tech crime fighting technology that’s already seen use in East Orange and Newark, and will be incredibly helpful in capturing killers throughout Paterson.
The next day, a 30-year-old woman, Letizia Zindell, was strangled to death in her Toms River house by her former fiancée. Frank Frisco, 36, had just gotten out of jail the day before, and after killing Zindell, hung himself in his own house. Zindell died in a quiet suburban neighborhood, just blocks from the Ocean County Mall, in a tragic reminder that domestic murders can happen anywhere.
In the same vein, on Thursday a 75-year-old Cliffside Park man died after being struck in the head by his daughter. In an argument over a minor issue, Sonia Jecmenica-Castillo, 40, punched Miodrag Jecmenica in the face, causing him to have a fatal heart attack. Jecmenica-Castillo was arrested and charged with the assault; after the autopsy results, she might be charged with manslaughter.
This is Bergen County’s 8th homicide this year. I pay attention to Bergen County statistics more closely, as it’s my own county, and it’s one of the more richer and suburban counties of the state. When I was in high school, the stereotype was that anything in Bergen County below Route 4 was the “ghetto” (Hackensack, Fairview, Teaneck, Lodi, Fort Lee) and everything in Bergen County above Route 4 was the rich, quiet, safe suburbs (Saddle River, Norwood, Mahwah, Alpine, Cresskill). Sure enough, every single one of the eight murders has been south of Route 4.
This homicide in Cliffside Park is the third domestic killing, after a choking in Elmwood Park and stabbing in Little Ferry. A fatal shooting during an armed robbery in Garfield, and a gang-related stabbing in Hackensack are more ominous and vicious types of killings. Three hit-and-runs make up the rest; one being the brutal and reckless killing of an elderly woman by a fleeing felon, and the others more ‘innocent’ hit and runs, if such a phrase can be used.
Because of Bergen County’s status as my home and its fairly moderate amount of murders, at least compared to Newark, it’s an interesting microcosm for homicide in society in general. While Bergen County has the same amount of murders as Union County, it differs in that the latter’s are generally confined to inner-city Elizabeth; Bergen County’s murders are spread out all over. It should be always kept in mind that the chances of becoming a random victim of murder are fairly low; most victims know the attacker, as can be seen in all the domestic and gang-related killings. Murder by total stranger is almost unknown, especially in the inner-ring suburbs of Bergen County. I’ll be continuing to track the murders, with special attention on Bergen County. Be safe.
2009 New Jersey homicide map - http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?gl=us&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=100430255326859206461.00046c0c8bf50984defdd
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Crime update - August 2009
I apologize for not updating this blog, but I’ve been so busy with work that it’s been difficult to find the time.
The month of August has been a violent one so far for the state of New Jersey. After over a month without a single homicide, Camden has exploded in violence, with six murders in the last two weeks, with three taking place in a three block radius. On July 28, 18-year-old Albert Santana was gunned down on the street; on August 1, Joseph Jones, 40, was similarly killed with a barrage of gunfire just a block away. Six days later, 23-year-old Scott Ferguson was standing just another block away from the previous murder scene when two gunmen opened fire on him from a car and sped away.
Also in Camden, a double murder in a house near the Pennesauken border ramped up the year’s body count. Details are hazy, but after a burst of gunfire, Ramon Roman, a 16-year-old boy was dead, and a 68-year-old bystander, Juan Lopez, was dying from a wound from a stray bullet. Jose Feliciano of Camden, 24, was arrested and charged with the murders. And just two days ago on Sunday morning around 11AM, the body of Danielle Lindeborn, 22, was found shot once in the head on a Camden backroad. Her murder has not been solved.
In other inner-cities of New Jersey, the violence usually associated with the summer continues as usual. After shooting and critically wounding her boyfriend in a domestic dispute, Essex County Corrections Officer Kelly McKenith murdered her 4-month old baby before turning her firearm on herself in Newark’s south ward. Farther up north, Alkabir Diggs, 29, was shot in the chest and killed in a Newark high-rise on August 5. Another man with him was wounded with a gunshot to the shoulder. Ahmad Davis, 28, is suspected in the murder and is being searched for by authorities. Finally for Newark, one of its residents, Amar Singh Rana, 48, was shot multiple times in a robbery of his Irvington gas station over the weekend.
Also in smaller cities of New Jersey, David Rodriguez was shot and killed on August 4 in Paterson, and World War II veteran Robert Aldrich, 88, was beaten to death by a mentally unstable neighbor in his New Brunswick apartment August 4. The suspect in the latter case, Randy Collins, 33, was arrested; the Paterson murder remains unsolved.
In the outer-ring suburbs, a drunk hit and run took the life of Kristen King, a Somerset County woman killed on a rural road August 1. Also, the town of Pompton Lakes in Passaic County suffered its first murder in four years on Sunday, when a domestic dispute between a divorcing couple turned violent. Pratixabahen Patel, 35, was killed with multiple stab wounds in her Pompton Lakes condo by her husband, Jitendrab Patel, 51. He was discovered by the police in the act of stabbing his wife, but before they could arrest him, he slit his own throat with another blade. He is expected to survive his wound.
Only perhaps five minutes from my house on a road that I frequently drive, a carjacker killed an elderly woman in the early morning hours of August 8 in Palisades Park. Daniel Graham of Jersey City, 25, was being driven home by an SUV limo due to his drunkenness, and while stopped in Leonia, Graham assaulted the driver, and stole the vehicle. He continued driving south at high speeds, striking parked cars and poles before slamming into a bus stop where Sukyeol Lee, 81, was sitting waiting for a ride to church. Both Lee and Graham were killed in the violent accident.
The incidents that strike so close to me give me more pause; along with a domestic dispute homicide in Little Ferry last month and a gang stabbing in nearby Hackensack, these have been the closest murders to me, only several minutes away. Furthermore, a 17-year-old young man from my town who had attended my onetime high school in Ridgefield Park was shot in the head and killed in Paterson several weeks ago; the group of friends he was with abandoned the weapon and fled the scene. The details of his murder are sketchy, but his death was discussed in my town, and affects me personally on a deeper level than even the most tragic killing in Camden or Newark.
There have been two hundred homicides so far in 2009 – eight of these double homicides, and nine of these in self-defense. So far, the top cities for murders:
#1 Newark – 40
#2 Jersey City – 22
#3 Camden – 21
#4 Trenton – 13
#5 Irvington – 9
#6 (tie) East Orange – 5
#6 (tie) Elizabeth – 5
#6 (tie) Paterson – 5
#9 (tie) Hackensack – 3
#9 (tie) Mansfield – 3
#9 (tie) New Brunswick – 3
The top counties for murders:
Essex: 63
Camden: 25
Hudson: 25
Mercer: 14
Middlesex: 13
Passaic: 10
Union: 8
Bergen: 7
Burlington: 6
Monmouth: 6
Cumberland: 5
Atlantic: 4
Cape May: 3
Gloucester: 2
Ocean: 3
Somerset: 3
Warren: 3
Salem: 1
Sussex: 1
Hunterdon County and Morris County both have a homicide count of zero.
137 males and 53 females have been victims of homicide.
The age breakdown:
0-9: 6
10-19: 25
20-29: 75
30-39: 29
40-49: 23
50-59: 19
60-69: 3
70-79: 4
80-89: 6
90+: 1
Unknown: 6
The month breakdown:
January: 25
February: 22
March: 25
April: 20
May: 31
June: 29
July: 32
I’ll be updating this blog a lot more often now. In a week I’ll be returning to Washington DC, but still continuing to follow the news in New Jersey.
The link for the map is http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?gl=us&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=100430255326859206461.00046c0c8bf50984defdd
The month of August has been a violent one so far for the state of New Jersey. After over a month without a single homicide, Camden has exploded in violence, with six murders in the last two weeks, with three taking place in a three block radius. On July 28, 18-year-old Albert Santana was gunned down on the street; on August 1, Joseph Jones, 40, was similarly killed with a barrage of gunfire just a block away. Six days later, 23-year-old Scott Ferguson was standing just another block away from the previous murder scene when two gunmen opened fire on him from a car and sped away.
Also in Camden, a double murder in a house near the Pennesauken border ramped up the year’s body count. Details are hazy, but after a burst of gunfire, Ramon Roman, a 16-year-old boy was dead, and a 68-year-old bystander, Juan Lopez, was dying from a wound from a stray bullet. Jose Feliciano of Camden, 24, was arrested and charged with the murders. And just two days ago on Sunday morning around 11AM, the body of Danielle Lindeborn, 22, was found shot once in the head on a Camden backroad. Her murder has not been solved.
In other inner-cities of New Jersey, the violence usually associated with the summer continues as usual. After shooting and critically wounding her boyfriend in a domestic dispute, Essex County Corrections Officer Kelly McKenith murdered her 4-month old baby before turning her firearm on herself in Newark’s south ward. Farther up north, Alkabir Diggs, 29, was shot in the chest and killed in a Newark high-rise on August 5. Another man with him was wounded with a gunshot to the shoulder. Ahmad Davis, 28, is suspected in the murder and is being searched for by authorities. Finally for Newark, one of its residents, Amar Singh Rana, 48, was shot multiple times in a robbery of his Irvington gas station over the weekend.
Also in smaller cities of New Jersey, David Rodriguez was shot and killed on August 4 in Paterson, and World War II veteran Robert Aldrich, 88, was beaten to death by a mentally unstable neighbor in his New Brunswick apartment August 4. The suspect in the latter case, Randy Collins, 33, was arrested; the Paterson murder remains unsolved.
In the outer-ring suburbs, a drunk hit and run took the life of Kristen King, a Somerset County woman killed on a rural road August 1. Also, the town of Pompton Lakes in Passaic County suffered its first murder in four years on Sunday, when a domestic dispute between a divorcing couple turned violent. Pratixabahen Patel, 35, was killed with multiple stab wounds in her Pompton Lakes condo by her husband, Jitendrab Patel, 51. He was discovered by the police in the act of stabbing his wife, but before they could arrest him, he slit his own throat with another blade. He is expected to survive his wound.
Only perhaps five minutes from my house on a road that I frequently drive, a carjacker killed an elderly woman in the early morning hours of August 8 in Palisades Park. Daniel Graham of Jersey City, 25, was being driven home by an SUV limo due to his drunkenness, and while stopped in Leonia, Graham assaulted the driver, and stole the vehicle. He continued driving south at high speeds, striking parked cars and poles before slamming into a bus stop where Sukyeol Lee, 81, was sitting waiting for a ride to church. Both Lee and Graham were killed in the violent accident.
The incidents that strike so close to me give me more pause; along with a domestic dispute homicide in Little Ferry last month and a gang stabbing in nearby Hackensack, these have been the closest murders to me, only several minutes away. Furthermore, a 17-year-old young man from my town who had attended my onetime high school in Ridgefield Park was shot in the head and killed in Paterson several weeks ago; the group of friends he was with abandoned the weapon and fled the scene. The details of his murder are sketchy, but his death was discussed in my town, and affects me personally on a deeper level than even the most tragic killing in Camden or Newark.
There have been two hundred homicides so far in 2009 – eight of these double homicides, and nine of these in self-defense. So far, the top cities for murders:
#1 Newark – 40
#2 Jersey City – 22
#3 Camden – 21
#4 Trenton – 13
#5 Irvington – 9
#6 (tie) East Orange – 5
#6 (tie) Elizabeth – 5
#6 (tie) Paterson – 5
#9 (tie) Hackensack – 3
#9 (tie) Mansfield – 3
#9 (tie) New Brunswick – 3
The top counties for murders:
Essex: 63
Camden: 25
Hudson: 25
Mercer: 14
Middlesex: 13
Passaic: 10
Union: 8
Bergen: 7
Burlington: 6
Monmouth: 6
Cumberland: 5
Atlantic: 4
Cape May: 3
Gloucester: 2
Ocean: 3
Somerset: 3
Warren: 3
Salem: 1
Sussex: 1
Hunterdon County and Morris County both have a homicide count of zero.
137 males and 53 females have been victims of homicide.
The age breakdown:
0-9: 6
10-19: 25
20-29: 75
30-39: 29
40-49: 23
50-59: 19
60-69: 3
70-79: 4
80-89: 6
90+: 1
Unknown: 6
The month breakdown:
January: 25
February: 22
March: 25
April: 20
May: 31
June: 29
July: 32
I’ll be updating this blog a lot more often now. In a week I’ll be returning to Washington DC, but still continuing to follow the news in New Jersey.
The link for the map is http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?gl=us&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=100430255326859206461.00046c0c8bf50984defdd
Monday, July 6, 2009
Another change for the blog - New Jersey Murder Map
As of July 1, I’ve stopped recording crimes in North Jersey. The project is effectively over, and while I was planning to keep it going for four months, there are some reasons that I just can’t do it anymore.
1. Time constraints. Working a real job twelve hours a day, five days a week, doesn’t give me a lot of time to write blog posts or record crime data; the rare moments I’m free I want to relax and spend with friends. I was planning to just start recording violent crimes – murder, shooting, robbery – as burglary and stolen vehicles were far too common and minor. However, now that June has ended, I’ve stopped the project entirely. It was just too much…but my murder map is still going on.
2. Unreliable statistics. The Clifton Journal provides in-depth coverage of all crime in the city, down to the minute thefts and burglaries. The same goes for other towns, like suburban Pequannock and Teaneck. They run well-kept websites that diligently track crime. Poor cities – Passaic, Newark, Paterson – have no such websites, and can’t afford to track the massive amount of crime that occurs within their borders. That’s why Newark has only one burglary listed, while Cedar Grove has around twelve. No one would debate Newark having more total burglaries – but the stats don’t show this.
3. Bias in journalism. When Justin Grisham, 13, was shot and killed in Irvington, his death didn’t appear in the newspapers for a week. Similarly, murders in Newark don’t make the front page, and sometimes aren’t even covered. However, murders in the suburbs get a massive amount of press. This is partially because Newark attempts to downplay its murder rate, and partially because of innate prejudice – in the poor and minority areas, it’s EXPECTED that they kill one another. It’s not news when a teenage boy is shot on a corner in Camden, it’s news when that doesn’t happen. Crimes in the suburbs are heavily covered, while crimes in the inner-cities, even murders, are treated as if the victims aren’t deserving of the same attention and respect. It’s offensive, but it’s reality in the Star-Ledger.
4. The murder map is more important. As I said, my murder map project is still running strong, and I think I’ll be continuing that indefinitely. Murders are relatively rare, very serious, and get a lot of publicity – all of which make them easier to record for data purposes. All of 2009 is up to date, and April-December 2008 as well. Expect posts in the future about them!
I’ll still update on crime occasionally, but the murder map is now my primary focus.
The week in homicide:
On July 1, Adrian Betanzos, 26, was found beaten to death in his home in New Brunswick, located on French Street. His roommate, a 20-year-old illegal immigrant named Reinaldo Fuentes, was arrested and charged in the murder. Also that day, an unidentified 34-year-old man was shot in the back of the head on a dead end on Weequahic Avenue, Newark. Many times, murder victims aren’t even identified by name in the paper, especially if they die in the slums.
On July 2, a police shooting took the life of a brazen burglar. Edwin Munoz, 22, a Hoboken resident, was burglarizing cars in Belleville along with his partner Japhet Lopez of Newark, 25. This type of crime is all too common, as my data shows, but the end of their story is an uncommon one.
The Belleville police caught them and gave chase, and a high-speed pursuit into Newark took place. The burglars pulled their car into a dead-end street in Newark, and panicking and trying to escape, struck a police officer. The officers began to fire, and Munoz was shot in the head. He died a short time later. Lopez attempted to flee, but was arrested.
On July 3, a 21-year-old man succumbed to the wounds he had received in a brutal stabbing in Hackensack the week earlier. Victor Garcia of Teaneck was standing outside the M&M factory when three gang members began arguing with him, stabbing him in the throat and stomach. Manuel Ramirez of Hackensack, 21, Gabriel Pujols of Union City, 21, and a 16-year-old Hackensack minor were arrested and charged with the murder. They all were associated with the gang DDP (Dominicans Don't Play). This murder, which took place on the corner of Lodi and Holt, was the closest in proximity to where I live. I don’t consider Hackensack an unsafe area, but it has gangs and crime, and care should always be taken wherever you walk in certain parts.
Yesterday, the body of a 2-year-old girl was found in a plastic bag on a riverbank in Clifton, and this morning, a 19-year-old man named Devohn Warren was shot multiple times outside an East Orange house. Homicides this week have been entirely in urban areas, and one was justified. I’ll keep updating the maps, so keep your eye out for updates!
New Jersey Murder Map 2009
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=100430255326859206461.00046c0c8bf50984defdd&ct=docsearch&cd=2&cad=docsearch,cid:5026006392543339616
New Jersey Murder Map 2008
Part 1 –http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=100430255326859206461.00046d3b4de6cca1b960c&ct=docsearch&cd=3&cad=docsearch,cid:2867335661195458285
Part 2 – http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=100430255326859206461.00046ddb7ddbc92058992&ct=docsearch&cd=4&cad=docsearch,cid:15976396532017962073
1. Time constraints. Working a real job twelve hours a day, five days a week, doesn’t give me a lot of time to write blog posts or record crime data; the rare moments I’m free I want to relax and spend with friends. I was planning to just start recording violent crimes – murder, shooting, robbery – as burglary and stolen vehicles were far too common and minor. However, now that June has ended, I’ve stopped the project entirely. It was just too much…but my murder map is still going on.
2. Unreliable statistics. The Clifton Journal provides in-depth coverage of all crime in the city, down to the minute thefts and burglaries. The same goes for other towns, like suburban Pequannock and Teaneck. They run well-kept websites that diligently track crime. Poor cities – Passaic, Newark, Paterson – have no such websites, and can’t afford to track the massive amount of crime that occurs within their borders. That’s why Newark has only one burglary listed, while Cedar Grove has around twelve. No one would debate Newark having more total burglaries – but the stats don’t show this.
3. Bias in journalism. When Justin Grisham, 13, was shot and killed in Irvington, his death didn’t appear in the newspapers for a week. Similarly, murders in Newark don’t make the front page, and sometimes aren’t even covered. However, murders in the suburbs get a massive amount of press. This is partially because Newark attempts to downplay its murder rate, and partially because of innate prejudice – in the poor and minority areas, it’s EXPECTED that they kill one another. It’s not news when a teenage boy is shot on a corner in Camden, it’s news when that doesn’t happen. Crimes in the suburbs are heavily covered, while crimes in the inner-cities, even murders, are treated as if the victims aren’t deserving of the same attention and respect. It’s offensive, but it’s reality in the Star-Ledger.
4. The murder map is more important. As I said, my murder map project is still running strong, and I think I’ll be continuing that indefinitely. Murders are relatively rare, very serious, and get a lot of publicity – all of which make them easier to record for data purposes. All of 2009 is up to date, and April-December 2008 as well. Expect posts in the future about them!
I’ll still update on crime occasionally, but the murder map is now my primary focus.
The week in homicide:
On July 1, Adrian Betanzos, 26, was found beaten to death in his home in New Brunswick, located on French Street. His roommate, a 20-year-old illegal immigrant named Reinaldo Fuentes, was arrested and charged in the murder. Also that day, an unidentified 34-year-old man was shot in the back of the head on a dead end on Weequahic Avenue, Newark. Many times, murder victims aren’t even identified by name in the paper, especially if they die in the slums.
On July 2, a police shooting took the life of a brazen burglar. Edwin Munoz, 22, a Hoboken resident, was burglarizing cars in Belleville along with his partner Japhet Lopez of Newark, 25. This type of crime is all too common, as my data shows, but the end of their story is an uncommon one.
The Belleville police caught them and gave chase, and a high-speed pursuit into Newark took place. The burglars pulled their car into a dead-end street in Newark, and panicking and trying to escape, struck a police officer. The officers began to fire, and Munoz was shot in the head. He died a short time later. Lopez attempted to flee, but was arrested.
On July 3, a 21-year-old man succumbed to the wounds he had received in a brutal stabbing in Hackensack the week earlier. Victor Garcia of Teaneck was standing outside the M&M factory when three gang members began arguing with him, stabbing him in the throat and stomach. Manuel Ramirez of Hackensack, 21, Gabriel Pujols of Union City, 21, and a 16-year-old Hackensack minor were arrested and charged with the murder. They all were associated with the gang DDP (Dominicans Don't Play). This murder, which took place on the corner of Lodi and Holt, was the closest in proximity to where I live. I don’t consider Hackensack an unsafe area, but it has gangs and crime, and care should always be taken wherever you walk in certain parts.
Yesterday, the body of a 2-year-old girl was found in a plastic bag on a riverbank in Clifton, and this morning, a 19-year-old man named Devohn Warren was shot multiple times outside an East Orange house. Homicides this week have been entirely in urban areas, and one was justified. I’ll keep updating the maps, so keep your eye out for updates!
New Jersey Murder Map 2009
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=100430255326859206461.00046c0c8bf50984defdd&ct=docsearch&cd=2&cad=docsearch,cid:5026006392543339616
New Jersey Murder Map 2008
Part 1 –http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=100430255326859206461.00046d3b4de6cca1b960c&ct=docsearch&cd=3&cad=docsearch,cid:2867335661195458285
Part 2 – http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=100430255326859206461.00046ddb7ddbc92058992&ct=docsearch&cd=4&cad=docsearch,cid:15976396532017962073
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Homicide map New Jersey 2009
The youngest was a year old. The oldest was ninety-six. Some were killed by bitter ex-lovers or romantic rivals, others were killed by their spouses or friends. Others yet were gunned down while selling drugs on a street corner, hit in gang crossfire, run down by fleeing felons, or simply caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The 2009 homicide map of New Jersey is fully researched and up to date, from the first homicide on January 1 2009, to the most recent one this morning. The map can be found at http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&gl=us&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=100430255326859206461.00046c0c8bf50984defdd
This map is helpful in getting a general picture of crime and its victims in New Jersey, looking at the age, race, gender, and location of these murder victims. However, not all homicides are created the same, and not all homicides are murder.
The homicide are separated into 3 degrees for the purpose of this list.
1st degree homicide – Cold-blooded murder, premeditated or otherwise. This includes gang-related hits, disputes, domestic violence, targeted killings, and blind disregard for human life. There were two cases where a victim was killed by shooters firing into a large crowd – an 18-year-old boy killed in Lawnside, and a 13-year-old girl killed in Trenton. These are counted as 1st degree homicides because of the shooters’ intent to kill, and their total lack of respect for life. Likewise, the beating death of a 9-year-old boy in Camden is counted as 1st degree, because even if the killer’s intent was not death, his recklessness with human life still classifies him as a murderer.
There have been 106 victims of 1st degree murder in New Jersey so far in 2009. Included in that are four double homicides.
2nd degree homicide – Indirect murder, aggravated manslaughter, and malicious assaults that result in death. This includes hit-and-runs that kill their victims, murders in which the killers don’t directly come in contact with their victims such as the murder of a firefighter in Elizabeth, and a controversial case in which a husband who had been fighting with his wife shot her in the back with a pellet gun, piercing her lung and killing her. Not all vehicular homicides are counted, as some are legitimately accidental, but vehicular homicides where the perpetrator runs, or refuses to stop for someone on the road, are considered opportunistic murder, despite their lack of premeditation. A driver who runs down a pedestrian due to carelessness is not the same as a fleeing criminal in a police chase who kills a woman while escaping the cops.
There have been twenty-one victims of 2nd degree murder so far in 2009.
3rd degree homicide – Justifiable homicide, including police shootings that result in the death of the criminal. This is the smallest category of homicides, and arguably the least damaging to society. When a man with a knife rushes at police threatening to kill them, taking the attacker’s life in self-defense is no crime, but still the intentional taking of life, so it counts on the homicide map.
There have been five victims of 3rd degree homicide so far in 2009, though it’s debatable if they should be considered ‘victims’ of anyone but themselves.
Some statistics and other details on the demographics of the victims:
102 men were victims of homicide, compared to 30 women. (77.2% versus 22.8%)
The range of ages was heavily concentrated from around 19-33, with a mode at 27, and smaller peaks scattered around.
0-17: 9
18-35:82
36-65: 33
66+: 7
Unknown: 6
Or, in another way of looking at it:
0-9: 5
10-19: 15
20-29: 50
30-39: 20
40-49: 15
50-59: 12
60-69: 1
70-79: 3
80-89: 3
90+: 1
Unknown: 6
The unknown ages are either people who were not identified, or in one case a homeless man whose age could not be determined. Here are some statistics on the homicides by geography:
List of cities by most homicides –
Newark – 22
Jersey City – 17
Camden – 14
Trenton – 8
East Orange – 3
Elizabeth – 3
Irvington – 3
Paterson – 3
A large list of towns had two murders, including Hackensack, Vineland, Bridgeton, and Atlantic City, and another even huger list of towns had only a single murder this year, including Garfield, Neptune, Passaic, Roselle, and Orange.
List of counties by most homicides –
Essex: 35
Hudson: 20
Camden: 17
Middlesex: 11
Mercer: 8
Passaic: 6
Monmouth: 5
Burlington: 5
Union: 5
Bergen: 4
Cumberland: 4
Cape May: 3
Atlantic: 2
Gloucester: 2
Ocean: 2
Somerset: 2
Warren: 2
Sussex: 1
Hunterdon: 0
Morris: 0
Salem: 0
As expected, the counties of Essex, Hudson, and Camden have the highest murder rates due to the cities Newark, Jersey City and Camden.
This blog will continue to cover North Jersey crime, but also murders around the entire state. Today, an unidentified woman was killed in Newark after her car was struck by three fleeing burglars, at the intersection of Foster and Dayton. The criminals, who were being chased by police after a burglary in Elizabeth, ran into Weequahic Park and are currently being hunted. This homicide is #23 for Newark, #35 for Essex County, and #132 for the state as a whole.
The blog will also cover certain publicized murders, or ones that serve as an example of typical crime, or ones that are just really interesting. Check back for more updates soon.
The 2009 homicide map of New Jersey is fully researched and up to date, from the first homicide on January 1 2009, to the most recent one this morning. The map can be found at http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&gl=us&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=100430255326859206461.00046c0c8bf50984defdd
This map is helpful in getting a general picture of crime and its victims in New Jersey, looking at the age, race, gender, and location of these murder victims. However, not all homicides are created the same, and not all homicides are murder.
The homicide are separated into 3 degrees for the purpose of this list.
1st degree homicide – Cold-blooded murder, premeditated or otherwise. This includes gang-related hits, disputes, domestic violence, targeted killings, and blind disregard for human life. There were two cases where a victim was killed by shooters firing into a large crowd – an 18-year-old boy killed in Lawnside, and a 13-year-old girl killed in Trenton. These are counted as 1st degree homicides because of the shooters’ intent to kill, and their total lack of respect for life. Likewise, the beating death of a 9-year-old boy in Camden is counted as 1st degree, because even if the killer’s intent was not death, his recklessness with human life still classifies him as a murderer.
There have been 106 victims of 1st degree murder in New Jersey so far in 2009. Included in that are four double homicides.
2nd degree homicide – Indirect murder, aggravated manslaughter, and malicious assaults that result in death. This includes hit-and-runs that kill their victims, murders in which the killers don’t directly come in contact with their victims such as the murder of a firefighter in Elizabeth, and a controversial case in which a husband who had been fighting with his wife shot her in the back with a pellet gun, piercing her lung and killing her. Not all vehicular homicides are counted, as some are legitimately accidental, but vehicular homicides where the perpetrator runs, or refuses to stop for someone on the road, are considered opportunistic murder, despite their lack of premeditation. A driver who runs down a pedestrian due to carelessness is not the same as a fleeing criminal in a police chase who kills a woman while escaping the cops.
There have been twenty-one victims of 2nd degree murder so far in 2009.
3rd degree homicide – Justifiable homicide, including police shootings that result in the death of the criminal. This is the smallest category of homicides, and arguably the least damaging to society. When a man with a knife rushes at police threatening to kill them, taking the attacker’s life in self-defense is no crime, but still the intentional taking of life, so it counts on the homicide map.
There have been five victims of 3rd degree homicide so far in 2009, though it’s debatable if they should be considered ‘victims’ of anyone but themselves.
Some statistics and other details on the demographics of the victims:
102 men were victims of homicide, compared to 30 women. (77.2% versus 22.8%)
The range of ages was heavily concentrated from around 19-33, with a mode at 27, and smaller peaks scattered around.
0-17: 9
18-35:82
36-65: 33
66+: 7
Unknown: 6
Or, in another way of looking at it:
0-9: 5
10-19: 15
20-29: 50
30-39: 20
40-49: 15
50-59: 12
60-69: 1
70-79: 3
80-89: 3
90+: 1
Unknown: 6
The unknown ages are either people who were not identified, or in one case a homeless man whose age could not be determined. Here are some statistics on the homicides by geography:
List of cities by most homicides –
Newark – 22
Jersey City – 17
Camden – 14
Trenton – 8
East Orange – 3
Elizabeth – 3
Irvington – 3
Paterson – 3
A large list of towns had two murders, including Hackensack, Vineland, Bridgeton, and Atlantic City, and another even huger list of towns had only a single murder this year, including Garfield, Neptune, Passaic, Roselle, and Orange.
List of counties by most homicides –
Essex: 35
Hudson: 20
Camden: 17
Middlesex: 11
Mercer: 8
Passaic: 6
Monmouth: 5
Burlington: 5
Union: 5
Bergen: 4
Cumberland: 4
Cape May: 3
Atlantic: 2
Gloucester: 2
Ocean: 2
Somerset: 2
Warren: 2
Sussex: 1
Hunterdon: 0
Morris: 0
Salem: 0
As expected, the counties of Essex, Hudson, and Camden have the highest murder rates due to the cities Newark, Jersey City and Camden.
This blog will continue to cover North Jersey crime, but also murders around the entire state. Today, an unidentified woman was killed in Newark after her car was struck by three fleeing burglars, at the intersection of Foster and Dayton. The criminals, who were being chased by police after a burglary in Elizabeth, ran into Weequahic Park and are currently being hunted. This homicide is #23 for Newark, #35 for Essex County, and #132 for the state as a whole.
The blog will also cover certain publicized murders, or ones that serve as an example of typical crime, or ones that are just really interesting. Check back for more updates soon.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
A clarification of the crime map
This is just a clarification as to what kinds of crime the map covers. The North Jersey crime map consists of the following offenses:
Assault: This is a crime in which physical force is used to injure another. This can include beating, striking, stabbing, pushing, or slashing another. A subcategory is motor vehicle assault, which comprises intentional assaults with a car, or hit-and-runs. Fatal assaults are assaults in which the crime results in the victim’s death.
Robbery: A crime in which force or violence is used to steal money or other items of value from a person. Examples are robberies at gunpoint, robberies at knifepoint, robberies with the threat of violence, robberies with a physical confrontation with the victim, and the subcategory of carjackings, which is the robbery of a vehicle by force.
Shooting: A serious crime in which a firearm is used to injure a person, or an attempted shooting where a firearm is brandished with intent to menace or fire. This includes cases where the gun jams, where shots are exchanged but no one is injured, and when guns are brandished to intimidate or threaten with force, separate from robbery. Fatal shootings are shootings that result in the death of a victim.
Burglary: A crime where someone enters a house, office, building or car unlawfully and steals items. Burglaries in which nothing is stolen are not counted in the crime map.
Stolen vehicle: A crime in which a car, bike, motorcycle, truck or other vehicle is stolen, usually by use of burglary.
Other: This is a very broad category, made up of many different offenses. Included is arson, distribution of a controlled substance, fraud, kidnapping, larceny, lewd acts, manslaughter, prostitution, sexual assault, and weapons offenses, among others. Manslaughter is arguably the most serious of these, as it results in a victim’s death, though death was not the perpetrator’s intent.
What the map DOESN’T cover is simple possession of controlled substance, shoplifting, minor larceny, burglaries with nothing stolen, criminal mischief, DWI, and most nonviolent crime. The map was designed to be about serious crime, not teenagers busted with weed and petty theft.
On another note, I’ve been working on studies of organized crime, as well as high-crime neighborhoods in North Jersey. Coming up soon!
Now for crime during the last few days:
Down in Newark, a breakthrough was made in the May 17 murder of DeSean Hamilton. The killers were tracked down to a house in Irvington, and the police arrested them and their acquaintances with two silenced assault weapons and handguns on them. Meanwhile, the Newark police continued to crack down on crime, with the breakup of an open-air market in Weequahic. A woman and teenage boy were arrested with fifty-nine decks of heroin, with a 12-gauge shotgun and 9mm assault rifle loaded with hollow-points close at hand to defend their corner.
Deeper into Essex County, a Wednesday murder became the newest addition to the homicide map. Dana Cook, a 44-year-old woman, was living in a vacant house in Orange, when the apparent rightful owner arrived and argued with her. In the dispute, he allegedly stabbed her to death, and then fled. The police tracked him down with a bloodhound, and he was placed under arrest.
Bergen County had two shocking crimes this week, the first in Hackensack, where a hit-and-run left a man dead, and the driver at large. The second was early Wednesday morning in River Edge, where in an instance of road rage, the driver of the 168 NJ Transit bus got into an altercation with a motorist on Kinderkamack Road. The motorist, a white male in his 20s, pulled out a silver handgun and brandished it at the bus driver before fleeing the scene. It’s doubtful that he will be apprehended.
In the most publicized crime so far, early yesterday morning a man from Sleepy Hollow NY was pumping gas in an industrial section of Jersey City when two men approached him, one possibly wielding a shotgun. The man possibly tried to escape in his van, but the robbers opened fire and the man was shot twice. He crashed the van, and with gunshot wounds in the forearm and stomach, was left on the street critically injured. He currently clings to life inside a Jersey City hospital, his survival in the balance.
Check back for more updates, as well as the different features on neighborhoods and gangs.
Assault: This is a crime in which physical force is used to injure another. This can include beating, striking, stabbing, pushing, or slashing another. A subcategory is motor vehicle assault, which comprises intentional assaults with a car, or hit-and-runs. Fatal assaults are assaults in which the crime results in the victim’s death.
Robbery: A crime in which force or violence is used to steal money or other items of value from a person. Examples are robberies at gunpoint, robberies at knifepoint, robberies with the threat of violence, robberies with a physical confrontation with the victim, and the subcategory of carjackings, which is the robbery of a vehicle by force.
Shooting: A serious crime in which a firearm is used to injure a person, or an attempted shooting where a firearm is brandished with intent to menace or fire. This includes cases where the gun jams, where shots are exchanged but no one is injured, and when guns are brandished to intimidate or threaten with force, separate from robbery. Fatal shootings are shootings that result in the death of a victim.
Burglary: A crime where someone enters a house, office, building or car unlawfully and steals items. Burglaries in which nothing is stolen are not counted in the crime map.
Stolen vehicle: A crime in which a car, bike, motorcycle, truck or other vehicle is stolen, usually by use of burglary.
Other: This is a very broad category, made up of many different offenses. Included is arson, distribution of a controlled substance, fraud, kidnapping, larceny, lewd acts, manslaughter, prostitution, sexual assault, and weapons offenses, among others. Manslaughter is arguably the most serious of these, as it results in a victim’s death, though death was not the perpetrator’s intent.
What the map DOESN’T cover is simple possession of controlled substance, shoplifting, minor larceny, burglaries with nothing stolen, criminal mischief, DWI, and most nonviolent crime. The map was designed to be about serious crime, not teenagers busted with weed and petty theft.
On another note, I’ve been working on studies of organized crime, as well as high-crime neighborhoods in North Jersey. Coming up soon!
Now for crime during the last few days:
Down in Newark, a breakthrough was made in the May 17 murder of DeSean Hamilton. The killers were tracked down to a house in Irvington, and the police arrested them and their acquaintances with two silenced assault weapons and handguns on them. Meanwhile, the Newark police continued to crack down on crime, with the breakup of an open-air market in Weequahic. A woman and teenage boy were arrested with fifty-nine decks of heroin, with a 12-gauge shotgun and 9mm assault rifle loaded with hollow-points close at hand to defend their corner.
Deeper into Essex County, a Wednesday murder became the newest addition to the homicide map. Dana Cook, a 44-year-old woman, was living in a vacant house in Orange, when the apparent rightful owner arrived and argued with her. In the dispute, he allegedly stabbed her to death, and then fled. The police tracked him down with a bloodhound, and he was placed under arrest.
Bergen County had two shocking crimes this week, the first in Hackensack, where a hit-and-run left a man dead, and the driver at large. The second was early Wednesday morning in River Edge, where in an instance of road rage, the driver of the 168 NJ Transit bus got into an altercation with a motorist on Kinderkamack Road. The motorist, a white male in his 20s, pulled out a silver handgun and brandished it at the bus driver before fleeing the scene. It’s doubtful that he will be apprehended.
In the most publicized crime so far, early yesterday morning a man from Sleepy Hollow NY was pumping gas in an industrial section of Jersey City when two men approached him, one possibly wielding a shotgun. The man possibly tried to escape in his van, but the robbers opened fire and the man was shot twice. He crashed the van, and with gunshot wounds in the forearm and stomach, was left on the street critically injured. He currently clings to life inside a Jersey City hospital, his survival in the balance.
Check back for more updates, as well as the different features on neighborhoods and gangs.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
A Question about Newark – and crimes so far this week
A recent article in the Star-Ledger has said that there were eleven murders in Newark in May, and around fourteen in June so far. Strangely, my list only records seven in May, and a further three in June for Newark. The Star-Ledger doesn’t report all murders in Newark, which I found somewhat shocking, due to the gravity of the crime. If this omission was anywhere but Newark, there would be outrage. Murders of suburban middle-class people not being covered is apparently unthinkable, and ignoring the impoverished dead on urban streets is the norm.
If anyone has information on these missing Newark murders, as well as any other crime, please contact me. The crime data for Newark on my map is artificially low, due to the Star-Ledger neglecting to report on most major Newark crimes, even murder.
The crimes of Newark are not the crimes of the suburbs, and a shocking attack like the one on June 12 would be unlikely in Millburn or Paramus. Only a block away from where a 19-year-old was murdered weeks before, a man pulled up in an SUV by the Stratford-Aspen apartments and began to argue with a 23-year-old man. The assailant pulled out a silver handgun and fired eight shots, striking his target in the back. However, stray bullets hit a 12-year-old boy who had been standing nearby in the stomach, buttocks, and arm, severely wounding him. The shooter escaped, leaving the boy clinging to life.
Early Saturday morning in Hoboken, another young life was ruined, but in a far different way. An 18-year-old junior in Hoboken High School and all-star of the basketball team was arrested after two vicious crimes. Around 1 AM a New York man was punched unconscious and robbed of his wallet; while police were investigating this robbery, the young man and friends were beating another man in Church Square Park for trespassing in their territory at night. The teen was arrested for robbery and assault, and his promising athletic career presumably ended.
On June 14, a sickening crime was discovered in East Orange. A family-owned grocery store was burglarized, and a citizen called the police to investigate. The police arrived at the store early in the morning before the owners got there, and discovered illegal fighting roosters bred for cockfights, and steroids used to bulk them up. The roosters were scarred, some covered in fresh wounds that suggested they had been battled within the previous few days. The owner, and his wife and teenage son, were arrested for animal cruelty, and the roosters were euthanized.
One notoriously bad area that I’ve discovered through my plotting of crimes on the map is the southern part of Montclair, especially in the vicinity of Mission Street. A hub of assaults, drug dealings, and occasional exchange of gunfire, this neighborhood was in uproar again Sunday night when a 33-year-old East Orange man was attacked by a gang of people on Mission Street. He was struck in the head with a pipe and stabbed, requiring evacuation to Newark Medical; several of his assailants were arrested, but the motive is still unclear.
As well as the Muddy Banks of the Hackensack crime blog and the New Jersey Murder Map, I’ve also been working on a study of organized crime in New Jersey. Any contributions to this would be welcome.
Murder Map
If anyone has information on these missing Newark murders, as well as any other crime, please contact me. The crime data for Newark on my map is artificially low, due to the Star-Ledger neglecting to report on most major Newark crimes, even murder.
The crimes of Newark are not the crimes of the suburbs, and a shocking attack like the one on June 12 would be unlikely in Millburn or Paramus. Only a block away from where a 19-year-old was murdered weeks before, a man pulled up in an SUV by the Stratford-Aspen apartments and began to argue with a 23-year-old man. The assailant pulled out a silver handgun and fired eight shots, striking his target in the back. However, stray bullets hit a 12-year-old boy who had been standing nearby in the stomach, buttocks, and arm, severely wounding him. The shooter escaped, leaving the boy clinging to life.
Early Saturday morning in Hoboken, another young life was ruined, but in a far different way. An 18-year-old junior in Hoboken High School and all-star of the basketball team was arrested after two vicious crimes. Around 1 AM a New York man was punched unconscious and robbed of his wallet; while police were investigating this robbery, the young man and friends were beating another man in Church Square Park for trespassing in their territory at night. The teen was arrested for robbery and assault, and his promising athletic career presumably ended.
On June 14, a sickening crime was discovered in East Orange. A family-owned grocery store was burglarized, and a citizen called the police to investigate. The police arrived at the store early in the morning before the owners got there, and discovered illegal fighting roosters bred for cockfights, and steroids used to bulk them up. The roosters were scarred, some covered in fresh wounds that suggested they had been battled within the previous few days. The owner, and his wife and teenage son, were arrested for animal cruelty, and the roosters were euthanized.
One notoriously bad area that I’ve discovered through my plotting of crimes on the map is the southern part of Montclair, especially in the vicinity of Mission Street. A hub of assaults, drug dealings, and occasional exchange of gunfire, this neighborhood was in uproar again Sunday night when a 33-year-old East Orange man was attacked by a gang of people on Mission Street. He was struck in the head with a pipe and stabbed, requiring evacuation to Newark Medical; several of his assailants were arrested, but the motive is still unclear.
As well as the Muddy Banks of the Hackensack crime blog and the New Jersey Murder Map, I’ve also been working on a study of organized crime in New Jersey. Any contributions to this would be welcome.
Murder Map
Sunday, June 14, 2009
New Jersey murder map - and how the media can distort it
If you look at the murder map on Google Maps ( http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&gl=us&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=100430255326859206461.00046c0c8bf50984defdd ), you’ll notice there’s been a big and better change. I’ve made the decision to extend the murder map to the entirety of the state, in every county, including the hot spot of Camden, as well as less dangerous cities like Trenton, Asbury Park, Atlantic City and Bridgeton. My reasons were that 1) murder is the most serious of crimes, and deserves to be covered statewide, 2) murder happens relatively infrequently compared to other crimes, so tracking all the state’s murders won’t be too tedious, and 3) the arbitrary borders I had before showed murders in some counties, ignoring murders in others, which dehumanized the victims into nothing more than statistics.
So now the murder map covers the entire state, since May 1. The rural center of New Jersey has few murders, with heavy concentrations in Newark/Jersey City, and murders dotted around the border, at Asbury Park, Atlantic City, Bridgeton, Camden and Trenton. Further inwards though, murders still do occur, but without the influence of drugs and organized crime.
Here are some statistics on homicides in NJ. This includes a police shooting, which is labeled as justified; though some might disagree, it’s still the intentional taking of a life, which differentiates it from the manslaughters and drunk driving crashes that also killed, but which aren’t included on the map.
Homicides
Newark – 9
Jersey City – 5
Camden – 3
Caldwell – 2 (1 justifiable)
Mansfield – 2
Trenton – 2
Asbury Park – 1
Atlantic City – 1
Bridgeton – 1
Bridgewater – 1
Cherry Hill – 1
East Orange – 1
North Brunswick – 1
Paterson – 1
If I’m missing any on this list, feel free to contact me.
Some statistics on the murders:
The youngest victim was 1, the oldest 96. Out of the thirty-one homicide victims, there were twenty-three blacks, four Latinos, and four whites. Twenty-four men were murdered, and seven women were murdered. Three of the murder victims were minors: a 1-year-old girl, a 13-year-old girl, and a 16-year old boy. There were many, many other cases where the victim was only 18 or 19 though.
Shootings accounted for twenty murders, stabbings four, beatings two, strangling two, and arson two. Looking at the map it’s easy to see where the most violence is concentrated, but in some ways it distorts the true picture. Paterson has had a tremendous number of shootings, but only one murder; suburban Caldwell and rural Mansfield have two murders each, which were rarities for those towns. Looking at the map, I was surprised that urban Union County had no murders, despite its proximity to Newark, and the major cities and industrial areas that encircle Elizabeth and the Woodbridge-Edison area. Nevertheless, the murder map is still a useful tool and an interesting addition to the North Jersey crime map concept.
My crime map still covers only North Jersey, it’s only murders that extend to the entire state. This blog might occasionally cover murders in other parts of the state if they’re exceptional enough. A 13-year-old girl gunned down at a block party in Trenton by gang members that spray twenty rounds into a huge crowd is exceptional in a way that a teenager shot while standing on a Camden street corner is not.
It’s the media, however, that distorts the picture the most. When a white middle-aged woman is raped and killed in a suburb like Bridgewater, the press is all over it, constantly covering it, providing updates on the cases; the majority of New Jersey’s population, who tend to be middle-class and white, relate to it. However, when gang shootings and outbursts of violence leave nine dead on the streets of Newark, the press barely bats an eye, providing minimal coverage relative to the more high-profile crimes. Occasionally a Newark murder will be highlighted as a microcosm of the troubles of the city – such as the pointless murder of Alonzo Canty, a wheelchair-bound elderly man who was shot in the crossfire between two gangs. But in general, the death of a poor black teenager has become so commonplace that the media apparently can’t afford those victims the same attention they give to suburban whites. Though their lots in life aren’t as good, their suffering and deaths are no less meaningful and painful for their families.
Out of thirty-one homicides, only four had white victims: one in Atlantic City, two in rural Warren County, and one in Bridgewater – none in North Jersey. This got me thinking about how crime in North Jersey is sometimes seen by the media and culture, through the lens of the Mafia. I looked back to the first season of the Sopranos, which for many people created an idea of what North Jersey was like.
In the first season of the Sopranos, ten people were murdered over the course of a summer and into autumn in the show. Seven were white, two Latino, and one black – almost a reversal of what the murder rate in New Jersey is really like. If today a white suburban man was shot to death in Secaucus (like Chucky Signore) or North Caldwell (Mikey Palmice) there would be a media uproar. Considering the attempted assassination of the main character Tony Soprano on a crowded Montclair street that left one man dead, it would become the top story for weeks. In the show, the media almost brushes the gang violence off, and though they recognize organized crime, they downplay it.
In reality, murder in New Jersey affects mostly the poor and minority, not the affluent and powerful, despite what the Sopranos depicts. In North Jersey, you are most likely to be killed if you are young, black, live in an urban area, and have organized crime connections. The kind of targets that the show depicts, and the locales in which they occur, just doesn’t happen in the actual North Jersey.
So now the murder map covers the entire state, since May 1. The rural center of New Jersey has few murders, with heavy concentrations in Newark/Jersey City, and murders dotted around the border, at Asbury Park, Atlantic City, Bridgeton, Camden and Trenton. Further inwards though, murders still do occur, but without the influence of drugs and organized crime.
Here are some statistics on homicides in NJ. This includes a police shooting, which is labeled as justified; though some might disagree, it’s still the intentional taking of a life, which differentiates it from the manslaughters and drunk driving crashes that also killed, but which aren’t included on the map.
Homicides
Newark – 9
Jersey City – 5
Camden – 3
Caldwell – 2 (1 justifiable)
Mansfield – 2
Trenton – 2
Asbury Park – 1
Atlantic City – 1
Bridgeton – 1
Bridgewater – 1
Cherry Hill – 1
East Orange – 1
North Brunswick – 1
Paterson – 1
If I’m missing any on this list, feel free to contact me.
Some statistics on the murders:
The youngest victim was 1, the oldest 96. Out of the thirty-one homicide victims, there were twenty-three blacks, four Latinos, and four whites. Twenty-four men were murdered, and seven women were murdered. Three of the murder victims were minors: a 1-year-old girl, a 13-year-old girl, and a 16-year old boy. There were many, many other cases where the victim was only 18 or 19 though.
Shootings accounted for twenty murders, stabbings four, beatings two, strangling two, and arson two. Looking at the map it’s easy to see where the most violence is concentrated, but in some ways it distorts the true picture. Paterson has had a tremendous number of shootings, but only one murder; suburban Caldwell and rural Mansfield have two murders each, which were rarities for those towns. Looking at the map, I was surprised that urban Union County had no murders, despite its proximity to Newark, and the major cities and industrial areas that encircle Elizabeth and the Woodbridge-Edison area. Nevertheless, the murder map is still a useful tool and an interesting addition to the North Jersey crime map concept.
My crime map still covers only North Jersey, it’s only murders that extend to the entire state. This blog might occasionally cover murders in other parts of the state if they’re exceptional enough. A 13-year-old girl gunned down at a block party in Trenton by gang members that spray twenty rounds into a huge crowd is exceptional in a way that a teenager shot while standing on a Camden street corner is not.
It’s the media, however, that distorts the picture the most. When a white middle-aged woman is raped and killed in a suburb like Bridgewater, the press is all over it, constantly covering it, providing updates on the cases; the majority of New Jersey’s population, who tend to be middle-class and white, relate to it. However, when gang shootings and outbursts of violence leave nine dead on the streets of Newark, the press barely bats an eye, providing minimal coverage relative to the more high-profile crimes. Occasionally a Newark murder will be highlighted as a microcosm of the troubles of the city – such as the pointless murder of Alonzo Canty, a wheelchair-bound elderly man who was shot in the crossfire between two gangs. But in general, the death of a poor black teenager has become so commonplace that the media apparently can’t afford those victims the same attention they give to suburban whites. Though their lots in life aren’t as good, their suffering and deaths are no less meaningful and painful for their families.
Out of thirty-one homicides, only four had white victims: one in Atlantic City, two in rural Warren County, and one in Bridgewater – none in North Jersey. This got me thinking about how crime in North Jersey is sometimes seen by the media and culture, through the lens of the Mafia. I looked back to the first season of the Sopranos, which for many people created an idea of what North Jersey was like.
In the first season of the Sopranos, ten people were murdered over the course of a summer and into autumn in the show. Seven were white, two Latino, and one black – almost a reversal of what the murder rate in New Jersey is really like. If today a white suburban man was shot to death in Secaucus (like Chucky Signore) or North Caldwell (Mikey Palmice) there would be a media uproar. Considering the attempted assassination of the main character Tony Soprano on a crowded Montclair street that left one man dead, it would become the top story for weeks. In the show, the media almost brushes the gang violence off, and though they recognize organized crime, they downplay it.
In reality, murder in New Jersey affects mostly the poor and minority, not the affluent and powerful, despite what the Sopranos depicts. In North Jersey, you are most likely to be killed if you are young, black, live in an urban area, and have organized crime connections. The kind of targets that the show depicts, and the locales in which they occur, just doesn’t happen in the actual North Jersey.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Utilizing Google Maps now; and a lot of shootings in North Jersey
After seeing NJ.com’s homicide map for Hudson County in 2008, I created a similar Google map with the North Jersey homicides for 2009: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&gl=us&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=100430255326859206461.00046c0c8bf50984defdd They’re color-coded for what city they occurred in, and includes the names and ages of deceased, where they’re known. The total is 17 so far, one being a police shooting, a justifiable homicide in self-defense. After these last few days of violence, I’m surprised there haven’t been more murders.
There were a LOT of shootings these last few days. On June 9, a single shot was fired near Ocean Avenue and Wegman Parkway in Jersey City. A man who was walking by was hit in the stomach, but didn’t realize that he had been shot until he got to his apartment and noticed the blood. The victim was uncooperative with the police, and drove himself to the hospital.
Two days later, there was a report of shots fired on Temple Street in Paterson. Officers on the scene pulled over a suspicious vehicle, and approached it with guns drawn. The occupants burst out of the Hummer and began to run, dropping weapons in the process. The driver was in possession of a Tec-9 automatic machine pistol, with forty bullets and one in the chamber. Another of the car’s occupants had a .357 magnum revolver, both weapons illegal. A digital scale found in the car suggests that they were involved in the drug trade.
Saddest of all, today a shooting in Newark left a 12-year-old boy in critical condition. By the Stratford Aspen Apartment Complex, where a 19-year-old boy was murdered two weeks ago, a man in a silver SUV pulled up and began to argue with a 23-year-old man standing in a group of people. The driver pulled out a handgun and fired eight shots, one striking his target in the back, but stray bullets hitting a 12-year-old who was standing nearby in the back, arm, and stomach. While the shooter’s target was in stable condition, the young man who took the most bullets is in critical care.
Crime tends to peak on the weekends, but there’s one piece of good news. A Paterson man responsible for at least fifteen car burglaries in Rutherford has been arrested, and cooperative with police. While not on the same level as shootings and murder, at least it’s a sign of progress in the neverending fight against crime.
There were a LOT of shootings these last few days. On June 9, a single shot was fired near Ocean Avenue and Wegman Parkway in Jersey City. A man who was walking by was hit in the stomach, but didn’t realize that he had been shot until he got to his apartment and noticed the blood. The victim was uncooperative with the police, and drove himself to the hospital.
Two days later, there was a report of shots fired on Temple Street in Paterson. Officers on the scene pulled over a suspicious vehicle, and approached it with guns drawn. The occupants burst out of the Hummer and began to run, dropping weapons in the process. The driver was in possession of a Tec-9 automatic machine pistol, with forty bullets and one in the chamber. Another of the car’s occupants had a .357 magnum revolver, both weapons illegal. A digital scale found in the car suggests that they were involved in the drug trade.
Saddest of all, today a shooting in Newark left a 12-year-old boy in critical condition. By the Stratford Aspen Apartment Complex, where a 19-year-old boy was murdered two weeks ago, a man in a silver SUV pulled up and began to argue with a 23-year-old man standing in a group of people. The driver pulled out a handgun and fired eight shots, one striking his target in the back, but stray bullets hitting a 12-year-old who was standing nearby in the back, arm, and stomach. While the shooter’s target was in stable condition, the young man who took the most bullets is in critical care.
Crime tends to peak on the weekends, but there’s one piece of good news. A Paterson man responsible for at least fifteen car burglaries in Rutherford has been arrested, and cooperative with police. While not on the same level as shootings and murder, at least it’s a sign of progress in the neverending fight against crime.
Monday, June 8, 2009
The Crime Map getting personal.
In any given week in crime, good things happen with the bad. The good things are the ones that you are detached from, and that give you faith in the power of humanity.
On Sunday, a Nutley woman’s ex-boyfriend broke into her house, severely beat her boyfriend, and kidnapped her at knifepoint. Through many anonymous tips, the man was located at a motel in the Meadowlands, and the woman was safely returned home, with the man being thrown in jail. That’s something that in the end has a happy outcome. Last Thursday, a woman walking up to her apartment in Greenville, Jersey City, was followed by two men up to her front steps, with several neighbors watching. While she turned around to ask what they were doing, they pulled out handguns and attempted to rob her. The neighborhood was watching; a woman on the first floor yelled out that she was calling the police and they were on their way. The two robbers fled, and everyone was safe in the end.
Other times, the crime is sickening and astounding. In broad daylight around noon on Saturday, two men, at least one bearing a knife, broke into a Maplewood Avenue house in Clifton. They began rummaging around, stealing jewelry and valuables, when they came into the room of a young woman who was sleeping. The burglars woke her up, and she began to panic. The robbers beat her until she was unconscious, the assault leaving her hospitalized, and the police chief remarking that the violence was “astounding.” The men fled,
And other times, the crime and violence strikes so close that it feels personal, and almost violating. A double homicide occurred two blocks from my girlfriend’s house in Caldwell this morning, one in cold blood, the other justified. A 37-year-old man stabbed his girlfriend to death in the kitchen of his house, 25 Espry Road, and the police came, alerted by her screams. By the time they arrived, she was dying, and the man lunged at the police with the knife. Two bullets brought him down, and both died around 10 AM today. Those two, plus a fatal shooting in broad daylight in Jersey City, made today, June 8th, the most deadliest day for homicides so far this summer. The fact that these gunshots were audible probably where my girlfriend was sleeping that morning disturbed me a little; I know the area, and I know the street, and Caldwell is not the kind of town that has murders and shootings. It feels strange to put Caldwell up next to Newark and Paterson on the murder count.
Which by the way:
Homicide count
Newark – 8
Jersey City – 5
Caldwell – 2 (1 being justifiable in self-defense)
Paterson – 1
East Orange – 1
Towns ranked by number of shootings
Newark – 10
Paterson – 7 (2 having no injuries)
Jersey City – 5
East Orange – 2 (1 having no injuries)
Irvington – 2 (1 no injuries)
Caldwell – 1
Montclair – 1 (multiple rounds exchanged, no injuries)
Netcong – 1 (no injuries)
West Orange – 1
Also striking very personally, a Stop N Shop in Teaneck five minutes away that I know and have been to was robbed by a man with a box cutter today. He was making his way out into the parking lot when he was confronted by a security guard; he brandished his blade, dropped the duffle bag and then fled. He was a white man in his forties with tattoos; he had robbed the store of diapers, formula, food, and baby medicine.
As far as other crime, there was one that needed to be mentioned. On Sunday, the police finally closed in on a public exhibitionist and masturbator who had been exposing himself and committing lewd acts around Clifton, Newark, and Passaic. He was cruising naked around Newark neighborhoods, then drove up to Passaic, where he exposed himself to two teenage girls, and was arrested. He has a history of similar misdemeanors, and is suspected in similar cases in the area.
On Sunday, a Nutley woman’s ex-boyfriend broke into her house, severely beat her boyfriend, and kidnapped her at knifepoint. Through many anonymous tips, the man was located at a motel in the Meadowlands, and the woman was safely returned home, with the man being thrown in jail. That’s something that in the end has a happy outcome. Last Thursday, a woman walking up to her apartment in Greenville, Jersey City, was followed by two men up to her front steps, with several neighbors watching. While she turned around to ask what they were doing, they pulled out handguns and attempted to rob her. The neighborhood was watching; a woman on the first floor yelled out that she was calling the police and they were on their way. The two robbers fled, and everyone was safe in the end.
Other times, the crime is sickening and astounding. In broad daylight around noon on Saturday, two men, at least one bearing a knife, broke into a Maplewood Avenue house in Clifton. They began rummaging around, stealing jewelry and valuables, when they came into the room of a young woman who was sleeping. The burglars woke her up, and she began to panic. The robbers beat her until she was unconscious, the assault leaving her hospitalized, and the police chief remarking that the violence was “astounding.” The men fled,
And other times, the crime and violence strikes so close that it feels personal, and almost violating. A double homicide occurred two blocks from my girlfriend’s house in Caldwell this morning, one in cold blood, the other justified. A 37-year-old man stabbed his girlfriend to death in the kitchen of his house, 25 Espry Road, and the police came, alerted by her screams. By the time they arrived, she was dying, and the man lunged at the police with the knife. Two bullets brought him down, and both died around 10 AM today. Those two, plus a fatal shooting in broad daylight in Jersey City, made today, June 8th, the most deadliest day for homicides so far this summer. The fact that these gunshots were audible probably where my girlfriend was sleeping that morning disturbed me a little; I know the area, and I know the street, and Caldwell is not the kind of town that has murders and shootings. It feels strange to put Caldwell up next to Newark and Paterson on the murder count.
Which by the way:
Homicide count
Newark – 8
Jersey City – 5
Caldwell – 2 (1 being justifiable in self-defense)
Paterson – 1
East Orange – 1
Towns ranked by number of shootings
Newark – 10
Paterson – 7 (2 having no injuries)
Jersey City – 5
East Orange – 2 (1 having no injuries)
Irvington – 2 (1 no injuries)
Caldwell – 1
Montclair – 1 (multiple rounds exchanged, no injuries)
Netcong – 1 (no injuries)
West Orange – 1
Also striking very personally, a Stop N Shop in Teaneck five minutes away that I know and have been to was robbed by a man with a box cutter today. He was making his way out into the parking lot when he was confronted by a security guard; he brandished his blade, dropped the duffle bag and then fled. He was a white man in his forties with tattoos; he had robbed the store of diapers, formula, food, and baby medicine.
As far as other crime, there was one that needed to be mentioned. On Sunday, the police finally closed in on a public exhibitionist and masturbator who had been exposing himself and committing lewd acts around Clifton, Newark, and Passaic. He was cruising naked around Newark neighborhoods, then drove up to Passaic, where he exposed himself to two teenage girls, and was arrested. He has a history of similar misdemeanors, and is suspected in similar cases in the area.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
A new direction for this blog
This blog started out as a personal journal, a record of my thoughts and my feelings on myself, my life, and the world around me. The first few posts continued in this way, with stories of the last few weeks of my first year at American University, and only veered into the crime data and mapping on a whim. Now that the crime aspect of the blog has become more serious, the face of the blog should change, and I now consider this primarily a blog about Northern Jersey crime, rather than my own personal life.
Because of this, I’ve deleted several posts from this blog that were inappropriate in the light of such a serious subject like crime, and also to make this blog more focused on that one issue. From now on, From the Muddy Banks of the Hackensack will cover the crime map only.
And speaking of the crime map, the first week of June has seen some interesting happenings in North Jersey. Just after midnight, the first new crime of the month took place in Jersey City, with a drunken argument culminating in a man getting stabbed in the back, and then refusing to cooperate with police to find the suspect. An inauspicious start to June.
Further in Jersey City, a 9-month probe into organized crime resulted in the arrest of 35 street-level dealers and organizational leaders in a gang that specialized in heroin trafficking and dealing, with several murders attributed to them. They were operating out of the A. Harry Moore and Marion Gardens projects on Westside; seven were charged on the federal level.
Aside from the usual burglaries, minor assaults, and robberies in the area, there were two murders in Newark in the first week of June. On June 2, a 25-year-old man was found around 10pm on 11th Street near Woodland in Newark, his body riddled with multiple gunshots. The next day, tragedy struck Newark again, in the far northern reaches of the city, almost in Belleville and Bloomfield. A gang fight erupted outside the Stephen Crane projects, which are populated primarily with senior citizens. Four shots were exchanged; one of these went through an old woman’s door, another struck the chest of a 70-year-old senior citizen in a wheelchair. He died within minutes, and the culprits fled.
Since this blog will have more of a singular focus now, expect more regular updates, and more in-depth coverage of the crimes detailed. Condolences to the families of the two men who died this week in Newark.
-Ronan
Because of this, I’ve deleted several posts from this blog that were inappropriate in the light of such a serious subject like crime, and also to make this blog more focused on that one issue. From now on, From the Muddy Banks of the Hackensack will cover the crime map only.
And speaking of the crime map, the first week of June has seen some interesting happenings in North Jersey. Just after midnight, the first new crime of the month took place in Jersey City, with a drunken argument culminating in a man getting stabbed in the back, and then refusing to cooperate with police to find the suspect. An inauspicious start to June.
Further in Jersey City, a 9-month probe into organized crime resulted in the arrest of 35 street-level dealers and organizational leaders in a gang that specialized in heroin trafficking and dealing, with several murders attributed to them. They were operating out of the A. Harry Moore and Marion Gardens projects on Westside; seven were charged on the federal level.
Aside from the usual burglaries, minor assaults, and robberies in the area, there were two murders in Newark in the first week of June. On June 2, a 25-year-old man was found around 10pm on 11th Street near Woodland in Newark, his body riddled with multiple gunshots. The next day, tragedy struck Newark again, in the far northern reaches of the city, almost in Belleville and Bloomfield. A gang fight erupted outside the Stephen Crane projects, which are populated primarily with senior citizens. Four shots were exchanged; one of these went through an old woman’s door, another struck the chest of a 70-year-old senior citizen in a wheelchair. He died within minutes, and the culprits fled.
Since this blog will have more of a singular focus now, expect more regular updates, and more in-depth coverage of the crimes detailed. Condolences to the families of the two men who died this week in Newark.
-Ronan
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
North Jersey Crime Map May 2009
The month of May is over.
The first month of the crime map experiment is completed, and with it I feel like I have so much more of an understanding of the causes and results of crime.
Sometimes it takes place in the most random of locales – two thoughtless youths aiming a gun at a police officer as they speed down a rural highway. Sometimes it takes place just where you’d expect it to – a man shot in the back of the head and left to die on a Jersey City street. Sometimes it’s the border between the two, between the city and suburbia, where it worries you that sometimes the crime encroaches into the places that you don’t want them to – a man stabbed in his driveway in Lodi, Bergen County.
Sometimes the people who commit the crimes are addicts, like burglars in Sussex and Essex County who stole to feed their addiction. Sometimes, the crimes are accidental, like a man panicking and running from the police, or an 11-year-old girl accidentally shot during a drive-by shooting, or a gang of teenage girls robbing a woman just because they feel like it. These are the crimes anyone around you might do. Sometimes they’re well-planned and organized, like robberies of social clubs and malls, like huge drug rings, like stickups for thousands of dollars.
These crime maps below are divided by county. The towns are shaded as to how many incidents of crime took place within their borders, and select incidents are highlighted to show a sample of the kinds of crime that took place within the county.
Before seeing the actual crime maps, which serve to dehumanize as well as illustrate the human cost of crime, I just want to consider the victims of the twelve murders that took place in North Jersey in the month of May. These are the ones who have lost their lives due to crime, and the ones that should be remembered most. Newark suffered six murders, Jersey City four, and one each in Paterson and East Orange.
Murders
May 5 – Shooting in Newark, man killed with gunshots to chest and head in Vailsburg. One of the people with him was also wounded by the gunfire.
May 6 – Stabbing in Paterson, man stabbed multiple times in Wrigley Park and left to die on the street. He was a 39-year-old with a family.
May 6 – Stabbing in Jersey City, man stabbed in his neck and shoulder in Journal Square. He was murdered in the doorway of his apartment building, in an apparent robbery gone wrong.
May 11 – Shooting in Newark, man killed with gunshot to head in Weequahic, one of his friends also hurt by the gunshots, making it seem to be a gang fight.
May 17 – Shooting in Newark, man killed with gunshot to chest in Weequahic, only blocks from the Beth Israel Medical Center.
May 17 – Strangling in Jersey City, man killed by choking in The Heights. A friend of his was charged with his death, which happened after an argument got out of control.
May 18 – Strangling in Newark, man killed by choking in Newark Bay. He was an inmate at a halfway house, who was only in there for being in debt for traffic violations. He was murdered by two men who strangled him over twenty dollars; the facility didn’t lock its inmates doors at night.
May 24 – Shooting in Newark, man killed by multiple gunshots in South Broad Valley.
May 25 – Shooting in Jersey City, man killed with gunshot to the head in Bergen-Lafayette on a street corner.
May 25 – Shooting in Jersey City, man killed with multiple gunshots to back in Greenville, left for dead on the street.
May 28 – Shooting in East Orange, woman killed with multiple gunshots while sitting in her car in front of an elementary school. The students found her; her ex-boyfriend, the culprit, had committed suicide in his Irvington apartment afterwards.
May 28 – Shooting in Newark, man killed with gunshot to chest in South Broad valley. He was 19.
That being said, here are the crime maps of North Jersey for May of 2009.
Bergen County -
Essex County -
Hudson County -
Morris County -
Passaic County -
Sussex County -
The first month of the crime map experiment is completed, and with it I feel like I have so much more of an understanding of the causes and results of crime.
Sometimes it takes place in the most random of locales – two thoughtless youths aiming a gun at a police officer as they speed down a rural highway. Sometimes it takes place just where you’d expect it to – a man shot in the back of the head and left to die on a Jersey City street. Sometimes it’s the border between the two, between the city and suburbia, where it worries you that sometimes the crime encroaches into the places that you don’t want them to – a man stabbed in his driveway in Lodi, Bergen County.
Sometimes the people who commit the crimes are addicts, like burglars in Sussex and Essex County who stole to feed their addiction. Sometimes, the crimes are accidental, like a man panicking and running from the police, or an 11-year-old girl accidentally shot during a drive-by shooting, or a gang of teenage girls robbing a woman just because they feel like it. These are the crimes anyone around you might do. Sometimes they’re well-planned and organized, like robberies of social clubs and malls, like huge drug rings, like stickups for thousands of dollars.
These crime maps below are divided by county. The towns are shaded as to how many incidents of crime took place within their borders, and select incidents are highlighted to show a sample of the kinds of crime that took place within the county.
Before seeing the actual crime maps, which serve to dehumanize as well as illustrate the human cost of crime, I just want to consider the victims of the twelve murders that took place in North Jersey in the month of May. These are the ones who have lost their lives due to crime, and the ones that should be remembered most. Newark suffered six murders, Jersey City four, and one each in Paterson and East Orange.
Murders
May 5 – Shooting in Newark, man killed with gunshots to chest and head in Vailsburg. One of the people with him was also wounded by the gunfire.
May 6 – Stabbing in Paterson, man stabbed multiple times in Wrigley Park and left to die on the street. He was a 39-year-old with a family.
May 6 – Stabbing in Jersey City, man stabbed in his neck and shoulder in Journal Square. He was murdered in the doorway of his apartment building, in an apparent robbery gone wrong.
May 11 – Shooting in Newark, man killed with gunshot to head in Weequahic, one of his friends also hurt by the gunshots, making it seem to be a gang fight.
May 17 – Shooting in Newark, man killed with gunshot to chest in Weequahic, only blocks from the Beth Israel Medical Center.
May 17 – Strangling in Jersey City, man killed by choking in The Heights. A friend of his was charged with his death, which happened after an argument got out of control.
May 18 – Strangling in Newark, man killed by choking in Newark Bay. He was an inmate at a halfway house, who was only in there for being in debt for traffic violations. He was murdered by two men who strangled him over twenty dollars; the facility didn’t lock its inmates doors at night.
May 24 – Shooting in Newark, man killed by multiple gunshots in South Broad Valley.
May 25 – Shooting in Jersey City, man killed with gunshot to the head in Bergen-Lafayette on a street corner.
May 25 – Shooting in Jersey City, man killed with multiple gunshots to back in Greenville, left for dead on the street.
May 28 – Shooting in East Orange, woman killed with multiple gunshots while sitting in her car in front of an elementary school. The students found her; her ex-boyfriend, the culprit, had committed suicide in his Irvington apartment afterwards.
May 28 – Shooting in Newark, man killed with gunshot to chest in South Broad valley. He was 19.
That being said, here are the crime maps of North Jersey for May of 2009.
Bergen County -
Essex County -
Hudson County -
Morris County -
Passaic County -
Sussex County -
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
The crime map for May coming to an end.
The month is nearly over, and the full crime map showing the areas and levels of crimes in the region can be posted. In the meantime, here’s an overview of the previous week in crime, and some statistics of the crime data so far:
On May 18, four hooded suspects robbed a jewelry store in Hackensack. Two were arrested, the others returned to Brooklyn with the stolen property. Also on that Monday, a 51-year-old inmate at a Newark rehab center was found strangled by two other inmates in a dispute over $20.
On May 19, a Tuesday, a man was arrested for attempted sexual assault on a minor in Ridgefield Park (the hometown of the author) on an internet sting, where he was told to come to a certain location to have sex with a ten-year-old girl. Police arrested him as soon as he got out of his car. Also, a post office in East Orange was robbed at gunpoint.
Wednesday, May 20, had police investigating two shotgun blasts in Irvington, and a gang of gun-toting robbers breaking into a Montclair house, tying up the three occupants, and stealing their wallets as well as possessions in the house.
On Thursday, May 21, a police sting arrested a Parsippany man with 40 loaded pistols, assault rifles, and other weaponry in his house. A few miles east in Paterson that morning, a policeman shot and missed an axe-wielding man who had tried to attack him.
On May 22, two men with Uzi assault rifles robbed a construction boss of $11,000 in cash in downtown Jersey City. Also, two teenagers were carjacked in Paterson, robbed, and left abandoned in northwest. The carjackers were found outside a liquor store an hour later, and were arrested for the carjacking, as well as the twelve baggies of crack cocaine, as well as cannabis and heroin, in their car.
On Saturday, May 23, a young woman claimed to have been raped by two men at the house of Jets’ safety Kerry Rhodes in Morristown. Also, in the early morning of downtown Jersey City, a drive-by shooting critically injured two men. One escaped with a bullet in the leg, but the other was struck six times, in the upper back, stomach, arm, leg, and hand, leaving him in intensive care in the hospital.
On Sunday, May 24, an open air drug market was busted in Jersey City, leading to six men being arrested on drug and illegal weapons charges. Also, a Laundromat owner was stabbed by a homeless man over a small sum of money in Paterson.
In the early morning hours of May 25, a 23-year-old man was fatally shot in the head on a street corner in Jersey City. Later in that day, a Crip in East Orange drew a .38 caliber pistol on his ex-girlfriend and threatened to shoot her in the head; she called the police and he was arrested. He was already facing charges for operating an organized gang of drug distribution all over Essex and Morris Counties.
Since midnight on May 1, there have been:
86 burglaries
33 non-fatal assaults
27 robberies
14 non-fatal shootings
12 stolen vehicles
6 disorderly conducts
6 distribution charges
4 fatal assaults
4 fatal shootings
3 arsons
3 larceny charges
3 sexual assaults
3 weapons offenses
2 lewd acts
1 blackmail
1 breaking and entering
1 carjacking
1 combined distribution and weapons charge
1 manslaughter
1 prostitution charge
In the northernmost six counties of New Jersey. Jersey City clearly appears to be the most dangerous place, with three murders standing out on the list, as well as eleven assaults, two non-fatal shootings, and four armed robberies. Crime has even extended into Bergen and Morris Counties, where robberies, drug distribution, burglaries, and sexual assaults have all shown up on the radar. Sussex County is the only county that’s comparatively quiet. Passaic, Essex, and Hudson are all teeming with crime.
The murders so far have been:
May 5 – Shooting in Newark, man killed with gunshots to chest and head in Vailsburg
May 6 – Stabbing in Paterson, man stabbed multiple times in Wrigley Park
May 6 – Stabbing in Jersey City, man stabbed in his neck and shoulder in Journal Square
May 11 – Shooting in Newark, man killed with gunshot to head in Weequahic
May 17 – Shooting in Newark, man killed with gunshot to chest in Weequahic
May 17 – Strangling in Jersey City, man killed by choking in The Heights
May 18 – Strangling in Newark, man killed by choking in Newark Bay
May 25 – Shooting in Jersey City, man killed with gunshot to the head in Bergen-Lafayette
For some final county data on violent crime before the crime map goes up:
Bergen County has five nonfatal assaults, three robberies.
Essex County has three fatal shootings, five non-fatal shootings, one fatal assault, one non-fatal assault, eleven robberies.
Hudson County has one fatal shooting, two non-fatal shootings, two fatal assaults, sixteen non-fatal assaults, and seven robberies.
Morris County has one non-fatal shooting, five non-fatal assaults, and two robberies.
Passaic County has six non-fatal shootings, one fatal assault, four non-fatal assaults, and three robberies.
Sussex County has two non-fatal assaults and one robbery.
Not a day goes by that I don’t reflect on the human cost behind the numbers. While it’s easy to say that Paterson is doing well compared to Jersey City and Newark in terms of violent crime, the crime that does occur affects real human lives. Each of these shootings, robberies, and burglaries means the world to someone, and it’s something that isn’t spoken to in these cold, hard statistics.
On May 18, four hooded suspects robbed a jewelry store in Hackensack. Two were arrested, the others returned to Brooklyn with the stolen property. Also on that Monday, a 51-year-old inmate at a Newark rehab center was found strangled by two other inmates in a dispute over $20.
On May 19, a Tuesday, a man was arrested for attempted sexual assault on a minor in Ridgefield Park (the hometown of the author) on an internet sting, where he was told to come to a certain location to have sex with a ten-year-old girl. Police arrested him as soon as he got out of his car. Also, a post office in East Orange was robbed at gunpoint.
Wednesday, May 20, had police investigating two shotgun blasts in Irvington, and a gang of gun-toting robbers breaking into a Montclair house, tying up the three occupants, and stealing their wallets as well as possessions in the house.
On Thursday, May 21, a police sting arrested a Parsippany man with 40 loaded pistols, assault rifles, and other weaponry in his house. A few miles east in Paterson that morning, a policeman shot and missed an axe-wielding man who had tried to attack him.
On May 22, two men with Uzi assault rifles robbed a construction boss of $11,000 in cash in downtown Jersey City. Also, two teenagers were carjacked in Paterson, robbed, and left abandoned in northwest. The carjackers were found outside a liquor store an hour later, and were arrested for the carjacking, as well as the twelve baggies of crack cocaine, as well as cannabis and heroin, in their car.
On Saturday, May 23, a young woman claimed to have been raped by two men at the house of Jets’ safety Kerry Rhodes in Morristown. Also, in the early morning of downtown Jersey City, a drive-by shooting critically injured two men. One escaped with a bullet in the leg, but the other was struck six times, in the upper back, stomach, arm, leg, and hand, leaving him in intensive care in the hospital.
On Sunday, May 24, an open air drug market was busted in Jersey City, leading to six men being arrested on drug and illegal weapons charges. Also, a Laundromat owner was stabbed by a homeless man over a small sum of money in Paterson.
In the early morning hours of May 25, a 23-year-old man was fatally shot in the head on a street corner in Jersey City. Later in that day, a Crip in East Orange drew a .38 caliber pistol on his ex-girlfriend and threatened to shoot her in the head; she called the police and he was arrested. He was already facing charges for operating an organized gang of drug distribution all over Essex and Morris Counties.
Since midnight on May 1, there have been:
86 burglaries
33 non-fatal assaults
27 robberies
14 non-fatal shootings
12 stolen vehicles
6 disorderly conducts
6 distribution charges
4 fatal assaults
4 fatal shootings
3 arsons
3 larceny charges
3 sexual assaults
3 weapons offenses
2 lewd acts
1 blackmail
1 breaking and entering
1 carjacking
1 combined distribution and weapons charge
1 manslaughter
1 prostitution charge
In the northernmost six counties of New Jersey. Jersey City clearly appears to be the most dangerous place, with three murders standing out on the list, as well as eleven assaults, two non-fatal shootings, and four armed robberies. Crime has even extended into Bergen and Morris Counties, where robberies, drug distribution, burglaries, and sexual assaults have all shown up on the radar. Sussex County is the only county that’s comparatively quiet. Passaic, Essex, and Hudson are all teeming with crime.
The murders so far have been:
May 5 – Shooting in Newark, man killed with gunshots to chest and head in Vailsburg
May 6 – Stabbing in Paterson, man stabbed multiple times in Wrigley Park
May 6 – Stabbing in Jersey City, man stabbed in his neck and shoulder in Journal Square
May 11 – Shooting in Newark, man killed with gunshot to head in Weequahic
May 17 – Shooting in Newark, man killed with gunshot to chest in Weequahic
May 17 – Strangling in Jersey City, man killed by choking in The Heights
May 18 – Strangling in Newark, man killed by choking in Newark Bay
May 25 – Shooting in Jersey City, man killed with gunshot to the head in Bergen-Lafayette
For some final county data on violent crime before the crime map goes up:
Bergen County has five nonfatal assaults, three robberies.
Essex County has three fatal shootings, five non-fatal shootings, one fatal assault, one non-fatal assault, eleven robberies.
Hudson County has one fatal shooting, two non-fatal shootings, two fatal assaults, sixteen non-fatal assaults, and seven robberies.
Morris County has one non-fatal shooting, five non-fatal assaults, and two robberies.
Passaic County has six non-fatal shootings, one fatal assault, four non-fatal assaults, and three robberies.
Sussex County has two non-fatal assaults and one robbery.
Not a day goes by that I don’t reflect on the human cost behind the numbers. While it’s easy to say that Paterson is doing well compared to Jersey City and Newark in terms of violent crime, the crime that does occur affects real human lives. Each of these shootings, robberies, and burglaries means the world to someone, and it’s something that isn’t spoken to in these cold, hard statistics.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Two weeks of tracking North Jersey crime has led me to realize
That the world is a cold and scary place.
Not really. My opinion of the world remains optimistic and I haven’t fallen too far into cynicism. But the crime map and data collection offers a chilling view of the place in which I live. I’ve found a lot of local papers and news sources that provide police and crime reports that are missing on NJ.com and the Record’s website. So with a database of crime that’s much more complete, here are a few statistics and interesting cases.
From May 1, 2009 to the present hour, there have been two fatal shootings, eight non-fatal shootings, two fatal assaults, eighteen non-fatal serious assaults, eight robberies, fifty-nine burglaries, and sixteen other offenses – ranging from distribution of controlled substance to lewd acts to arson. The heaviest concentration of crime was in Paterson, not surprisingly, with another heavy concentration in Jersey City. There were two huge strings of burglaries as well that are possibly related – one in north Bergen County, one in north Essex. Other strings of burglaries appeared in the Meadowlands, in Nutley, and other locations as well.
It’s safe to say that Paterson, as well as south Passaic County in general, is a dangerous place. Clifton holds its own against Paterson in terms of crime, and surprisingly, Newark doesn’t appear to be as crime-filled as Passaic county, but it does have more serious crime, and the most murders so far.
A few of the interesting crimes that caught my eye from May 8 onwards:
Clifton had its fair share of robberies. On May 9, a 16-year-old boy walking down Federal Street was approached by 10-12 Hispanic juveniles, who asked “what’s popping,” and then proceeded to beat and rob the teenager. Another woman was robbed that same night outside a bar on Highland at 3 AM, choked and punched, her purse stolen. That very same day, four men broke into a house in Bloomfield, tied and duct-taped the owner, and robbed him – May 9 was a good day for robbers.
Police cracked down on drugs this week. On May 8, five Bloods were arrested at a Paterson stash house, and $500,000 of cocaine, heroin and ecstasy was seized, and a similar heroin bust took place a few days ago in Paramus. Speaking of Paterson, they had a ridiculous amount of shootings the weekend of May 9-10. On May 9, a 19-year-old was approached and shot in the legs, a 35-year-old took bullets in the arms and chest in a drive-by shooting, and a 45-year-old man was shot once in the back getting ice cream; the next day, a 30-year-old bystander to a gunfight was shot in the fingers, and walked himself to the hospital. The victims in these cases all seemed resigned to their fate, living in Paterson.
On Thursday, a man was stabbed in a Jersey City parking lot, and the culprits taken down by a “father-son crime-fighting team.”
Crime strikes even the richest towns – on May 11, an $8,000 solar panel was stolen from a house on Amira Lane in Kinnelon.
On May 11, a Hoboken man was arrested on the charge of “committing a lewd act” – namely, publicly masturbating on the 300 block of 1st Street.
So I’m going to keep going with this project, at least until the end of May. My map is filled up with dots, but most of these are burglaries, which are the predominant crime. I’ll keep this blog updated with my findings.
Murders in North Jersey: May 1 – May 15
May 5 – Shooting in Newark, man killed with gunshots to chest and head in Vailsburg
May 6 – Assault in Paterson, man stabbed multiple times in Wrigley Park
May 6 – Assault in Jersey City, man stabbed in his neck and shoulder in Journal Square
May 11 – Shooting in Newark, man killed with gunshot to head in Weequahic
Entire crime map of North Jersey
Crime map of south Passaic County
Crime map of east Essex County
Crime map of south Hudson County
Not really. My opinion of the world remains optimistic and I haven’t fallen too far into cynicism. But the crime map and data collection offers a chilling view of the place in which I live. I’ve found a lot of local papers and news sources that provide police and crime reports that are missing on NJ.com and the Record’s website. So with a database of crime that’s much more complete, here are a few statistics and interesting cases.
From May 1, 2009 to the present hour, there have been two fatal shootings, eight non-fatal shootings, two fatal assaults, eighteen non-fatal serious assaults, eight robberies, fifty-nine burglaries, and sixteen other offenses – ranging from distribution of controlled substance to lewd acts to arson. The heaviest concentration of crime was in Paterson, not surprisingly, with another heavy concentration in Jersey City. There were two huge strings of burglaries as well that are possibly related – one in north Bergen County, one in north Essex. Other strings of burglaries appeared in the Meadowlands, in Nutley, and other locations as well.
It’s safe to say that Paterson, as well as south Passaic County in general, is a dangerous place. Clifton holds its own against Paterson in terms of crime, and surprisingly, Newark doesn’t appear to be as crime-filled as Passaic county, but it does have more serious crime, and the most murders so far.
A few of the interesting crimes that caught my eye from May 8 onwards:
Clifton had its fair share of robberies. On May 9, a 16-year-old boy walking down Federal Street was approached by 10-12 Hispanic juveniles, who asked “what’s popping,” and then proceeded to beat and rob the teenager. Another woman was robbed that same night outside a bar on Highland at 3 AM, choked and punched, her purse stolen. That very same day, four men broke into a house in Bloomfield, tied and duct-taped the owner, and robbed him – May 9 was a good day for robbers.
Police cracked down on drugs this week. On May 8, five Bloods were arrested at a Paterson stash house, and $500,000 of cocaine, heroin and ecstasy was seized, and a similar heroin bust took place a few days ago in Paramus. Speaking of Paterson, they had a ridiculous amount of shootings the weekend of May 9-10. On May 9, a 19-year-old was approached and shot in the legs, a 35-year-old took bullets in the arms and chest in a drive-by shooting, and a 45-year-old man was shot once in the back getting ice cream; the next day, a 30-year-old bystander to a gunfight was shot in the fingers, and walked himself to the hospital. The victims in these cases all seemed resigned to their fate, living in Paterson.
On Thursday, a man was stabbed in a Jersey City parking lot, and the culprits taken down by a “father-son crime-fighting team.”
Crime strikes even the richest towns – on May 11, an $8,000 solar panel was stolen from a house on Amira Lane in Kinnelon.
On May 11, a Hoboken man was arrested on the charge of “committing a lewd act” – namely, publicly masturbating on the 300 block of 1st Street.
So I’m going to keep going with this project, at least until the end of May. My map is filled up with dots, but most of these are burglaries, which are the predominant crime. I’ll keep this blog updated with my findings.
Murders in North Jersey: May 1 – May 15
May 5 – Shooting in Newark, man killed with gunshots to chest and head in Vailsburg
May 6 – Assault in Paterson, man stabbed multiple times in Wrigley Park
May 6 – Assault in Jersey City, man stabbed in his neck and shoulder in Journal Square
May 11 – Shooting in Newark, man killed with gunshot to head in Weequahic
Entire crime map of North Jersey
Crime map of south Passaic County
Crime map of east Essex County
Crime map of south Hudson County
Thursday, May 7, 2009
A look at crime - week 1
The first week of my crime experiment is over, and I’ve been listing and mapping the major crimes that have occurred in North Jersey’s five counties. What I’ve discovered is eye-opening, though not surprising. Crime is concentrated as I would have expected in Newark, Paterson, and Jersey City, though there were a few surprises in the data.
For one, a string of burglaries in the rural, upper-class Sussex County ended within the last few days, and in a strange parallel, so did a short burst of burglaries in poor, blighted Central Paterson. The suspect of the first was a middle-aged white heroin addict, another reminder that crime is not a specialized trait of certain races, ages, or classes.
There were two murders in North Jersey over this last week, and eight assaults severe enough to make the newspapers. The first murder took place in Newark, late on May 5, when two men were shot on Isabella Street. One was wounded with gunshots to the chest, the other was killed with gunshots to the head and chest; the killer has not been found. The second murder took place on Rosa Parks Boulevard in Paterson, where a 39-year-old man was stabbed multiple times the night of May 6, and left to die. Several more attempted murders and shootings took place as well.
There was a strange coincidence that four crimes took place in very close proximity to one another. Over the last week, there was a string of crime around Randolph, Netcong, Mount Arlington, and Roxbury – places out in the rural and much richer suburbs. All, however, were unrelated, and can be written off to coincidence. A hit and run on the highway, men brandishing a handgun at a policeman, a petty robbery at a strip mall– but most shocking of all, a stabbing at a house party in Roxbury. Some guests showed up uninvited to a party for a man getting out of the armed forces. They were denied entry – they came back with friends and knives, and stabbed the 22-year-old returning veteran four times, later being arrested, and their victim flown to Morristown Hospital. Such a brutal attack in a typically white and high-end suburb could go head to head with the worst assaults and crimes of Newark or Paterson.
Other notable events during this last week were numerous arrests and assaults at the Bamboozle music festival, an 11-year-old girl accidentally shot during a drive-by shooting in Newark, a 17-year-old high school student severely beaten with a lead pipe on a major Clifton street, and most bizarre of all, a man being shot in the head in Jersey City, and driving himself to the hospital, with only superficial wounds.
Crimes for the month of May, so far – Assaults, Robberies, Shootings, Burglaries, and Other
May 1 – Assault. Man severely beaten, Apartments @ Fremont Street, Jersey City
May 1 – Robbery. Woman robbed of $2500, Tuers and Vroom, Jersey City
May 1 – Assault. Drug dealer bites and punches cops while being placed under arrest for deal made at Central and Bowers, Jersey City
May 2 – Assault. Drunken man assaults police officer, diner 53rd and Broadway, Bayonne
May 2 – Assault. Stabbing @ house party, Main Street in Roxbury
May 2 – Assault. Bamboozle @ the Meadowlands
May 3 – Assault. Bamboozle @ the Meadowlands
May 3 – Arson. Arson at apartments, West Kinney and Broad, Newark
May 3 – Shooting. Driver wounded with gunshot to head, Cornelison and Fairmount, Jersey City
May 3 – Shooting. Gas station clerk wounded with gunshot to arm, Broadway and Summer, Paterson
May 4 – Burglary. 4000 dollars from house, Zinnia Drive, Vernon
May 4 – Robbery. Wallet in A&P parking lot, Randolph
May 4 – Shooting. Police shoot burglar in leg, 16th by South Orange, Newark
May 5 – Burglary. 2 handguns from house, Mountain Road, Hardyston
May 5 – Burglary. House on East 19th Street Paterson
May 5 – Burglary. Jewelry, laptop, camera taken from house on Rosa Parks and Lafayette, Paterson
May 5 – Assault. Hit and run, woman walking on roadway seriously injured, Route 80 Mount Arlington
May 5 – Intimidation. 2 men brandish handgun at police, Route 80 Netcong
May 5 – Shooting (fatal). One killed with gunshots to chest and head, one wounded with gunshot to chest, South Orange and Isabella, Newark
May 5 – Shooting. 11-year-old girl wounded in shoulder in drive-by, 14th and 14th, Newark
May 6 – Robbery. Dunkin Donuts robbed in North Bergen, Kennedy and 21st
May 6 – Assault (fatal). Man fatally stabbed multiple times, Godwin and Rosa Parks, Paterson
May 7 – Assault. Boy beaten with pipe, Rite Aid Lexington Avenue, Clifton
For one, a string of burglaries in the rural, upper-class Sussex County ended within the last few days, and in a strange parallel, so did a short burst of burglaries in poor, blighted Central Paterson. The suspect of the first was a middle-aged white heroin addict, another reminder that crime is not a specialized trait of certain races, ages, or classes.
There were two murders in North Jersey over this last week, and eight assaults severe enough to make the newspapers. The first murder took place in Newark, late on May 5, when two men were shot on Isabella Street. One was wounded with gunshots to the chest, the other was killed with gunshots to the head and chest; the killer has not been found. The second murder took place on Rosa Parks Boulevard in Paterson, where a 39-year-old man was stabbed multiple times the night of May 6, and left to die. Several more attempted murders and shootings took place as well.
There was a strange coincidence that four crimes took place in very close proximity to one another. Over the last week, there was a string of crime around Randolph, Netcong, Mount Arlington, and Roxbury – places out in the rural and much richer suburbs. All, however, were unrelated, and can be written off to coincidence. A hit and run on the highway, men brandishing a handgun at a policeman, a petty robbery at a strip mall– but most shocking of all, a stabbing at a house party in Roxbury. Some guests showed up uninvited to a party for a man getting out of the armed forces. They were denied entry – they came back with friends and knives, and stabbed the 22-year-old returning veteran four times, later being arrested, and their victim flown to Morristown Hospital. Such a brutal attack in a typically white and high-end suburb could go head to head with the worst assaults and crimes of Newark or Paterson.
Other notable events during this last week were numerous arrests and assaults at the Bamboozle music festival, an 11-year-old girl accidentally shot during a drive-by shooting in Newark, a 17-year-old high school student severely beaten with a lead pipe on a major Clifton street, and most bizarre of all, a man being shot in the head in Jersey City, and driving himself to the hospital, with only superficial wounds.
Crimes for the month of May, so far – Assaults, Robberies, Shootings, Burglaries, and Other
May 1 – Assault. Man severely beaten, Apartments @ Fremont Street, Jersey City
May 1 – Robbery. Woman robbed of $2500, Tuers and Vroom, Jersey City
May 1 – Assault. Drug dealer bites and punches cops while being placed under arrest for deal made at Central and Bowers, Jersey City
May 2 – Assault. Drunken man assaults police officer, diner 53rd and Broadway, Bayonne
May 2 – Assault. Stabbing @ house party, Main Street in Roxbury
May 2 – Assault. Bamboozle @ the Meadowlands
May 3 – Assault. Bamboozle @ the Meadowlands
May 3 – Arson. Arson at apartments, West Kinney and Broad, Newark
May 3 – Shooting. Driver wounded with gunshot to head, Cornelison and Fairmount, Jersey City
May 3 – Shooting. Gas station clerk wounded with gunshot to arm, Broadway and Summer, Paterson
May 4 – Burglary. 4000 dollars from house, Zinnia Drive, Vernon
May 4 – Robbery. Wallet in A&P parking lot, Randolph
May 4 – Shooting. Police shoot burglar in leg, 16th by South Orange, Newark
May 5 – Burglary. 2 handguns from house, Mountain Road, Hardyston
May 5 – Burglary. House on East 19th Street Paterson
May 5 – Burglary. Jewelry, laptop, camera taken from house on Rosa Parks and Lafayette, Paterson
May 5 – Assault. Hit and run, woman walking on roadway seriously injured, Route 80 Mount Arlington
May 5 – Intimidation. 2 men brandish handgun at police, Route 80 Netcong
May 5 – Shooting (fatal). One killed with gunshots to chest and head, one wounded with gunshot to chest, South Orange and Isabella, Newark
May 5 – Shooting. 11-year-old girl wounded in shoulder in drive-by, 14th and 14th, Newark
May 6 – Robbery. Dunkin Donuts robbed in North Bergen, Kennedy and 21st
May 6 – Assault (fatal). Man fatally stabbed multiple times, Godwin and Rosa Parks, Paterson
May 7 – Assault. Boy beaten with pipe, Rite Aid Lexington Avenue, Clifton
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Crime and Murder Just Footsteps Away. North Jersey, Summer 2009
When I was a kid I was surprised when my mom told me that people used the motels along 46 in South Hackensack for prostitution and drugs. I always remembered my dad telling me how someone got murdered in the Popeye’s in Teaneck, and the awe I felt that such incredible and dastardly events were taking place minutes from my house. My uncle would impress me with the story of how he and his partner had a gunfight with a Paterson bank robber 1974. The robber had been wounded in the stomach, and my uncle had approached him, and the man had said that it hurt; with all the gravitas of Clint Eastwood, my uncle kicked his balls, and told him that he didn’t hurt nearly enough.
Back then, I imagined all criminals were genius masterminds, all murders were dramatic and cinematic, and all crime breathtaking and exciting. Living by the intersection of routes 80, 46, and 95, ten minutes from New York City, I remember one night the police arrested a man for dumping keys of cocaine out of his car windows on the turnpike in a fit of paranoia. I always remember how my parents would warn me away from certain parks or the movie theater at night, due to people “doing drugs” or fighting; on a walk with my girlfriend when I was 16, we heard some pops, and immediately her mom called us to come back, because some teenagers were firing guns in the air a block from her house.
When people were robbed at gunpoint or had shots fired through their windows near me, I thought I lived in an exciting place. Yeah, I knew New York was dangerous – all the rapes and murders they showed on Eyewitness News convinced me of that – but this was my hometown! This was Paterson, Newark, Englewood, Passaic, Garfield, the places that I lived.
It was all exciting and unreal to me until when I was sixteen, and saw a guy get killed by the police in a terrible circumstance in Las Vegas. He was resisting arrest in a car, and speeding away when he hit a cop on a bicycle, knocking him out. The other cop drew his gun and shot him in the head. Me and my dad were walking on the block, but we didn’t even realize what had happened. The cops began to swarm all around, and got the civilians out of the way, and it wasn’t until later I realized the man had died.
A few days after that, a gang fight broke out at a house party a couple blocks from my house, and a 15-year-old boy who was running away was shot in the back with a .357 and left for dead on the street. His name was Ricky Smith. The Paterson Bloods who had killed him were all arrested, and in the next few months, a recognizance that gang activity existed in Teaneck was much more aware. In the next year, gang members were arrested with loaded guns on streets that I walked on every day, and at the Popeye’s on Teaneck Road, a gang fight resulted in a teenager getting stabbed in the neck, needing 300 stitches to close the wound. Before I left for college, an attempted shooting of a police officer in Little Ferry over the river was the news of the day.
It was this kind of stuff that made criminology one of my biggest interests. Even now, with a more mature and sober outlook on crime, and a much bigger realization of unsafeness, the motivation behind criminals and their actions is something that never ceases to interest me.
When I got to American University, during welcome week we couldn’t go a day without getting a public safety alert of a sex offense or robbery on the roads around American. A casual acquaintance of mine was nearly killed on August 20th, when he was being robbed at gunpoint on Nebraska and Van Ness, and the perpetrator pulled the trigger, only to have the gun jam. In DC, I was much more conscious of high crime areas, and I took this back with me when I went home for breaks.
One night this semester I found a crime map that showed all the crime in DC for the last few years, and I was shocked at the amount of crime in the NW. I didn’t think that the NW had such heavy crime, but this is DC – there were murders and shootings around Tenleytown, people killed in Georgetown, and robberies and knifepoint and gunpoint all around the AU area, and other parts of DC that I frequented. (One of my favorite discoveries was a drunken argument between two homeless men on Constitution Avenue in front of the White House. One of them, who was in a wheelchair, pulled a gun out of his bag and shot the other in the leg…in front of the White House.)
When I looked at crime statistics for my home in New Jersey, I was shocked. Not having paid attention all year to news from back home, I saw killings in Hackensack, drive-by shootings in Lodi, my town having five rapes and five robberies, teenagers being stabbed in gang fights in high school. News reports said that people wouldn’t walk in central Hackensack at night by 1st and Central because drugs were being sold their, and armed robberies kept taking place. Was my home always this dangerous, had I missed it all these years, or was I just more conscious?
I had an idea for this summer to chart all the violent crime in my area, recording it both here and on a Google map. This is not as a scare tactic, but as a sober reminder that this isn’t a problem just for inner cities, and that New Jersey and the places that we live all suffer from crime. My sources will be newspapers, both paper and internet. Because crime spikes in the summer, there will be enough data to have a good look at crime in my area, the places that it occurs, and why it occurs.
This chart and map will cover Bergen County, Passaic County, Essex County, Hudson County, and Morris County. Crimes covered are shootings (fatal and non-fatal), assaults, robberies, and other – including arson, rape, or other high-profile cases that make the news.
May
May 1 – Assault. Man severely beaten, Apartments @ Fremont Street, Jersey City
May 1 – Robbery. Woman robbed of $2500, Tuers and Vroom, Jersey City
May 2 – Assault. Drunken man assaults police officer, diner @ 53rd and Broadway, Bayonne
May 2 – Assault. Bamboozle @ the Meadowlands
May 3 – Assault. Bamboozle @ the Meadowlands
May 3 – Arson. Apartments @ Broad and West Kinney, Newark
May 3 – Shooting. Driver wounded with gunshot to head, Cornelison and Fairmount, Jersey City
May 3 – Shooting. Gas station clerk wounded with gunshot to arm, Broadway and Summer, Paterson
May 4 – Shooting. Police shoot burglar in leg, 16th by South Orange, Newark
May 5 – Shooting. One killed with gunshots to chest and head, one wounded with gunshot to chest, South Orange and Isabella, Newark
Back then, I imagined all criminals were genius masterminds, all murders were dramatic and cinematic, and all crime breathtaking and exciting. Living by the intersection of routes 80, 46, and 95, ten minutes from New York City, I remember one night the police arrested a man for dumping keys of cocaine out of his car windows on the turnpike in a fit of paranoia. I always remember how my parents would warn me away from certain parks or the movie theater at night, due to people “doing drugs” or fighting; on a walk with my girlfriend when I was 16, we heard some pops, and immediately her mom called us to come back, because some teenagers were firing guns in the air a block from her house.
When people were robbed at gunpoint or had shots fired through their windows near me, I thought I lived in an exciting place. Yeah, I knew New York was dangerous – all the rapes and murders they showed on Eyewitness News convinced me of that – but this was my hometown! This was Paterson, Newark, Englewood, Passaic, Garfield, the places that I lived.
It was all exciting and unreal to me until when I was sixteen, and saw a guy get killed by the police in a terrible circumstance in Las Vegas. He was resisting arrest in a car, and speeding away when he hit a cop on a bicycle, knocking him out. The other cop drew his gun and shot him in the head. Me and my dad were walking on the block, but we didn’t even realize what had happened. The cops began to swarm all around, and got the civilians out of the way, and it wasn’t until later I realized the man had died.
A few days after that, a gang fight broke out at a house party a couple blocks from my house, and a 15-year-old boy who was running away was shot in the back with a .357 and left for dead on the street. His name was Ricky Smith. The Paterson Bloods who had killed him were all arrested, and in the next few months, a recognizance that gang activity existed in Teaneck was much more aware. In the next year, gang members were arrested with loaded guns on streets that I walked on every day, and at the Popeye’s on Teaneck Road, a gang fight resulted in a teenager getting stabbed in the neck, needing 300 stitches to close the wound. Before I left for college, an attempted shooting of a police officer in Little Ferry over the river was the news of the day.
It was this kind of stuff that made criminology one of my biggest interests. Even now, with a more mature and sober outlook on crime, and a much bigger realization of unsafeness, the motivation behind criminals and their actions is something that never ceases to interest me.
When I got to American University, during welcome week we couldn’t go a day without getting a public safety alert of a sex offense or robbery on the roads around American. A casual acquaintance of mine was nearly killed on August 20th, when he was being robbed at gunpoint on Nebraska and Van Ness, and the perpetrator pulled the trigger, only to have the gun jam. In DC, I was much more conscious of high crime areas, and I took this back with me when I went home for breaks.
One night this semester I found a crime map that showed all the crime in DC for the last few years, and I was shocked at the amount of crime in the NW. I didn’t think that the NW had such heavy crime, but this is DC – there were murders and shootings around Tenleytown, people killed in Georgetown, and robberies and knifepoint and gunpoint all around the AU area, and other parts of DC that I frequented. (One of my favorite discoveries was a drunken argument between two homeless men on Constitution Avenue in front of the White House. One of them, who was in a wheelchair, pulled a gun out of his bag and shot the other in the leg…in front of the White House.)
When I looked at crime statistics for my home in New Jersey, I was shocked. Not having paid attention all year to news from back home, I saw killings in Hackensack, drive-by shootings in Lodi, my town having five rapes and five robberies, teenagers being stabbed in gang fights in high school. News reports said that people wouldn’t walk in central Hackensack at night by 1st and Central because drugs were being sold their, and armed robberies kept taking place. Was my home always this dangerous, had I missed it all these years, or was I just more conscious?
I had an idea for this summer to chart all the violent crime in my area, recording it both here and on a Google map. This is not as a scare tactic, but as a sober reminder that this isn’t a problem just for inner cities, and that New Jersey and the places that we live all suffer from crime. My sources will be newspapers, both paper and internet. Because crime spikes in the summer, there will be enough data to have a good look at crime in my area, the places that it occurs, and why it occurs.
This chart and map will cover Bergen County, Passaic County, Essex County, Hudson County, and Morris County. Crimes covered are shootings (fatal and non-fatal), assaults, robberies, and other – including arson, rape, or other high-profile cases that make the news.
May
May 1 – Assault. Man severely beaten, Apartments @ Fremont Street, Jersey City
May 1 – Robbery. Woman robbed of $2500, Tuers and Vroom, Jersey City
May 2 – Assault. Drunken man assaults police officer, diner @ 53rd and Broadway, Bayonne
May 2 – Assault. Bamboozle @ the Meadowlands
May 3 – Assault. Bamboozle @ the Meadowlands
May 3 – Arson. Apartments @ Broad and West Kinney, Newark
May 3 – Shooting. Driver wounded with gunshot to head, Cornelison and Fairmount, Jersey City
May 3 – Shooting. Gas station clerk wounded with gunshot to arm, Broadway and Summer, Paterson
May 4 – Shooting. Police shoot burglar in leg, 16th by South Orange, Newark
May 5 – Shooting. One killed with gunshots to chest and head, one wounded with gunshot to chest, South Orange and Isabella, Newark
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