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