Story By Walter Elliott
Photo By Thomas Ellis II
NEWARK / EAST ORANGE – City law enforcers and county prosecutors have arrested two men as suspects in separate Newark and East Orange shootings almost a month apart.
Authorities are also looking for the person or persons who shot and injured a 6-year-old girl and two men in their 20s in a Nov. 1 incident in Newark’s West Ward. That incident occurred while a manhunt was conducted in the South Ward for the first shooting that day.
Families of the girl, the two young men, two Newark Police Division officers and the late East Orange Campus High School student Letrell Duncan are meanwhile in different stages of mourning, healing and activism.
Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore “Ted” Stephens II and East Orange Police Chief Phyllis Bindi announced on Oct. 28, that two males were arrested and charged in the Oct 3 fatal shooting of Duncan in East Orange.
Josiah Wade, 22, has been held in Newark’s Essex County Correctional Facility since Oct. 27 on a count each of purposeful murder, conspiracy to agree or engage in conduct constituting a crime, knowingly receiving stolen property and wandering or prowling to obtain or sell a controlled dangerous substance. Wade’s residence or hometown was not given.
A 16-year-old boy has been held in county custody on charges of murder, conspiracy to commit murder and two weapons offenses.
Stephens and Bindi have given little detail on how Wade and the boy were linked to Duncan’s murder by 168 Lincoln St. Oct. 3 or how they were arrested. The 16-year-old basketball standout was shot two blocks south of his high school and while the next-door Edward T. Bowser Elementary School was dismissing its students for the day.
Authorities said that Duncan did not know his assailants. The juvenile is accused of firing four shots into Duncan.
East Orange Mayor Ted Green, in his Oct. 31 reaction to the arrests, said that his “heart breaks” for the families of the two 16-year-olds.
“Now’s the time for all of our community leaders to come together and prioritize the emotional, mental and physical well-being of our young people,” said Green. “No more lip service. No more talk. We need action – and that action cannot come from just one person or program alone; there’s strength in numbers. When we work together, we’ve the power to make change.”
Kendall Howard, 30, of East Orange, may well meanwhile be in the county detention center before you read this. Howard, who was arrested on 11 a.m. Nov. 2, is accused of shooting and injuring two NPD officers at a Van Velsor Place address in the Weequahic section Nov. 1.
Howard, as of press time, is being charged with two counts of attempted murder plus a count each of the unlawful possession of a weapon and possession of a firearm for an illegal purpose.
Stephens, Newark Public Safety Director Fritz Frage and Mayor Ras Baraka, in a Tuesday afternoon press conference, said that Howard was first wanted for questioning for firing a gun in the air while walking along the 100 block of Hansbury Avenue at 11:03 a.m. Oct. 28. Police found a shell casing there.
NPD subsequently produced and distributed handbills of the Oct. 28th gun firing. They used two pictures of the suspect as captured by a local street video surveillance camera.
NPD officers received a call at 1 p.m. Tuesday from a resident of an apartment building at Van Velsor Place and Chancellor Avenue. The resident said she recognized the man in the handbill as a fellow resident.
Two uniformed officers pulled up to the apartment building shortly afterward at 1:45 p.m. and spotted the man later identified as Howard.
“They stopped to talk and identify him,” said Stephens, “and a violent interaction occurred.”
Howard is accused of pulling out a gun and shooting at two of the officers. One shot struck an officer’s leg; the other struck the officer’s neck and shoulder. Additional officers at the scene returned fire.
One officer and a pedestrian tended to the officer with the wounded neck while medical and police backup were called. The officer with the leg injury limped to an alley for safety.
Present and arriving NPD officers promptly entered the corner apartment building, thinking that Howard had retreated inside. They also evacuated building residents and taped off the intersection. Traffic – including buses on NJTransit’s No. 37, 39, 99, and 108 bus routes – were detoured.
That search and evacuation expanded to 11 adjacent buildings and several blocks. The nearby Chancellor Avenue School was locked down. NPD’s SWAT and helicopter units, the Essex County Sheriff’s Office, New Jersey State Police, U.S. Marshalls and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives joined in the manhunt.
It became clear that Howard had eluded authorities by 8:30 p.m. and the “all clear” was given by 9 p.m. ECPO attorneys meanwhile got an arrest warrant on Howard from a Superior Court judge. The sheriff’s CrimeStoppers unit posted a reward leading to Howard’s arrest.
Gov. Phil Murphy and Acting State Attorney General Matthew Platkin were also advised of the shooting and search.
Howard would be found 10:45-11 a.m. at 25 Van Velsor Place. An NPD SWAT team, acting on a reference, entered the apartment building’s main entrance and 10 minutes later exited a side door with Howard in custody.
Residents were either told to stay in place or stay outside of the police tape cordoning off that block of Van Velsor. Some of NPD’s uniformed and plainclothes units also arrived in support.
The NPD officer with the leg injury has been treated and released from Newark’s University Hospital overnight. The officer with the grazed neck, who was admitted in stable condition, is being treated as of press time with a bullet lodged in his shoulder.
“Both officers (were) awake, still talking,” said FOP Local 11 President Jeff Webb Tuesday night. “Their families never left their side.”
NPD superior officers and top brass meanwhile received word of a shooting at 145 14th Ave., off South Orange Avenue and South 9th Street, at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
Officers who were responding to a ShotSpotter detection of shots fired from the Reservoir Site Townhouses property joined colleagues who were already at the scene to quell “a large fight.”
Arriving officers found three people suffering bullet wounds. Two men in their 20s and a 6-year-old girl were promptly taken to University Hospital and admitted in stable condition.
The girl was reportedly shot in the torso and has a collapsed lung. She was rushed in an NPD squad car to the emergency room.
On-scene officers said they were trying to contain and control the fight when shots were fired. Whoever fired the shots had fled the scene and remains at-large.
