BY WALTER ELLIOTT
NEWARK – City and county law enforcers – and the families of 12 gunshot victims – have been dealing with seven reported shooting incidents in New Jersey’s largest city in over a 25-hour period here July 16-17.
The shootings, as of July 20, had put nine people in the hospital – and a 10th admitted in critical condition.
Three men’s bodies were taken to the Regional Medical Examiner’s office here. An Irvington resident and a grocery store owner from Belleville have been identified. Their families are making funeral arrangements.
A third man, found shot dead in a car at a West Ward intersection, has not been publicly identified as of July 20.
The shootings, on one hand, came between two recorded heatwaves. The National Weather Service defines a heatwave as at least three straight days of 90-defree F. weather. The NWS takes its recordings from Newark Liberty International Airport – known for its acres of paved and impervious surfaces.
The 25-hour crime wave came while Newark’s leaders have deployed or are deploying some violence prevention programs.
Interim Public Safety Director and Mayor Ras Baraka, for example, had declared that 410 firearms have been confiscated since Jan. 1.
The 410 guns taken off the street, as of July 17, is a 46 percent increase from 2021. The count includes printed out and un-serial numbered “ghost guns” for a 143 percent collection increase over last year.
The Mayor’s Non-Violence Street Teams have been seen among the wards.
Herewith is a chronology of reported shootings between 6 p.m. Saturday July 16 and 7:11 p.m. Sunday July 17. All incidents are being actively investigated by the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office Homicide and Major Crimes Task Force.
* 6:07 p.m. Saturday, July 16, 759 So. 20th St: A man was found lying facedown on sidewalk with gunshot wound by a two-story house on the mostly residential block in the city’s West Side section.
Rasheed Mells, 24, of Irvington, whose identity was announced by the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office July 18, was declared dead at the scene at 6:15 p.m.
Responding NOD officers called in the ECPO Homicide Task Force for a field investigation plus additional units from other city police precincts for crowd control.
“Local Talk” noticed a continued police presence on the block between Springfield and 18th avenues at 9:30 a.m. July 18. Two NPD squad cars joined an ever-present remote surveillance camera station within.
Mells’ last rites have not been publicly announced as of July 20.
* 10:44 p.m. July 16 “245” So. 16th St. Two unidentified people were found with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds in the West Side section. The suspected shooter had fled the scene. Actual shooting address has yet to be confirmed; “245” is within Fairmount Cemetery.
* 4:30 a.m. Sunday, July 17, 50 block 11th Avenue: Two men found shot, including one wound in a forearm, in the West Ward’s Fairmount Heights neighborhood. Both were taken to a local hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries.
(Note: Atlantic Health Overlook Hospital-Union Campus had meanwhile reportedly called NPD of a man who was admitted with a gunshot wound. The man said he was shot in a Bloomfield Avenue bar here at 3 a.m.)
* 3:30 p.m. Central Avenue and South 10th Street: Police, local EMS, ECPO Homicide Task Force arrive to find a man shot multiple times, including a shot to the head, within a parked car. The unidentified man was declared dead at the scene
The intersection was taped off during the field investigation. Buses on NJTransit’s No. 5 and 34 routes plus CoachUSA’s 24 and 22 buses were among the detoured traffic.
* 3:55 p.m., 384 13th Ave./294 So. 10th St.: NPD, responding to a gunfire report at 3:55 p.m. finds a man shot in the head within the rear kitchen part of the Fairmount Heights’ R&A Supermarket. The man, identified as store owner Rabel Ramos-Gomez, 46, of Belleville, was declared dead at the scene at 4:15 p.m.
Police promptly taped off the intersection of 13th Avenue and South 10 Street. Buses on NJTransit Route 5 among those rerouted.
Witnesses outside the southeast corner store told police that an occupant in a passing car sprayed a hail of bullets. Ramos-Gomez’s relatives later pointed bullet marks, made by an AK-47 automatic machine gun, within the grocery’s walls.
Witnesses within the store, thinking they were about to be robbed, ducked the flying bullets – except Ramos-Gomez, who was cooking food for customers.
There has been no funeral announcement for Ramos-Gomez as of July 20. He leaves behind a wife and at least two children.
A growing makeshift memorial has been growing at the corner.
(Note: there has been no connection made between Ramos-Gomez’s fatal shooting and of the murdered car occupant some 25 minutes and two blocks apart.)
* 5:30 p.m., 424 Avon Ave/77 So. 15th St.: Police, responding to a ShotSpotter gunfire recording, arrived at Chea’s Food Market in the Springfield-Belmont section. They met a man who had walked into the northeast corner store with a bullet wound to one of his legs The victim taken to University Hospital for treatment of the non-life-threatening injury.
* 7:11 p.m. 751 Broadway: NPD and local EMS respond to the Newark Community Pharmacy & Surgical store on a quadruple shooting report. Although the given address led to the closed drug store, the first responders found four teenagers with gunshot wounds at the nearby Grafton Avenue intersection.
Two 14-year-olds were taken to local hospitals for treatment of graze wounds. A 17-year-old, however, was admitted to one in stable condition. A 15-year-old was admitted to University Hospital in critical condition.
The intersection where the Woodside and Broadway neighborhoods meet was closed during the field investigation. Drivers who were headed to Route 21’s Grafton entrance ramp and NJT No. 13 bus riders were detoured.
Witnesses said that someone in a grey Honda Civic fired shots at the crowd before fleeing north on Broadway. The car was found abandoned in Belleville by that township’s police.
(There is no known connection to this shooting and the one on June 27 that left Brandon T. Tisdol, 30, of Newark, dead in 805 Broadway’s apartment building lobby. 805 Broadway, at the T-intersection with Montclair Street, is a block or two north of the Grafton intersection.)
