BY WALTER ELLIOTT
NEWARK – The July 16 early morning stabbing aboard the Newark City Subway, while yielding no fatal injuries, caused “Local Talk” to consider the 16 deaths that have so far occurred this year in Newark.
A NJTransit Police spokesman said that his officers met an outbound Newark Light Rail train at Orange Street Station by First Street, at about 12:35 a.m. Wednesday. The train had stopped at the station after the operator said that someone had stabbed three people after the train had left Norfolk Street Station.
NJTPD officers found the three adult victims, the “adult male” suspect and the suspected knife still on board the two car Kinkisharyo train set. They promptly called for EMS while interviewing those on board. All four people involved were taken to a local hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries; the suspect was placed under arrest.
Although the 12:35 a.m. train was about the last of the day before the first trains went out to Grove Street Bloomfield or Newark Penn Station at 4:35 a.m., the stopped train remained stationary while a crime scene investigation was conducted.
Service resumed as intended for morning rush hour – except that Orange Street Station was bypassed until 10 a.m. It is not clear whether riders who transfer for the westbound No. 71 express were given an alternate stop.
The last time the Newark Light Rail was in the news for an incident was when a train and a car making an illegal right hand turn collided at Broad and Orange streets Feb. 13. The Penn Station bound train was on the 23-year-old Broad Street extension.
One is more likely to get hit by a bus here so far this year. One pedestrian was killed and a second injured after being hit by a westbound No. 25 or 70 bus at 375 Springfield Ave 1:30 a.m. March 1. Another man was injured by a 13 bus along the 600 block of Broadway May 23.
The death toll stands at 16 as of Noon July 22.
The latest death was of an 18-year-old man shooting 16-year-old Kayla Spivey Tutt over “a domestic dispute” June 27. Before then was the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old Irvington High School scholar-athlete Zyiad Cook June 25 before his grandmother’s Brookdale address.
There were three other homicides of people 18 years old and younger. A gunman shot a seven-year-old boy and wounded his shielding father at 180 Osborne Terrace Jan. 30. Two mothers were arrested for fatally beating their six and seven-year-old daughters at Stratford Court March 11 and at Bradley Court March 26.
The Springfield ShopRite Plaza parking lot where a city sanitation worker fatally stabbed another man Jan. 27. One is more likely be killed by gunfire, including a 20-year-old shot by the Cotton Funeral Home’s Bergen Street parlor May 10.
While the victims are predominantly Newarkers, an out-of-towner can also get the fatal bullet. A Paterson man, 20, was among several who were shot at 367 Sixth St. in the Roseville section June 23.
The unofficial “Local Talk” death toll does not include victims who expire of their injuries weeks after their shooting, stabbing or beating.
