A furious gun battle filled the streets of Jersey City, New Jersey, on Tuesday, December 10. Authorities also confirmed the death of 6 people that includes three civilians and a police officer. The sound of heavy gunfire continued for about an hour. However, the authorities did not consider the incident had anything to do with terrorism. Michael Kelly, the Jersey City police chief, said that the dead included two suspects.
Where did it start?
The shooting started at a cemetery killing the officer. Then it continued at a kosher supermarket where another five people were killed. The police chief said that the officers were under fire for hours. Despite that, it’s not clarifying what led to the shooting. He believed that the officer died while trying to stop some ‘bad guys.’ According to the governor, the standoff resulted in the lockdown of the neighbourhood, including a school, and several police officers sustained bullet injuries in the standoff.
Emergency response
The area which has some stores, a Catholic school, a hairstylist and a kosher supermarket experienced heavy gunfire sporadically along a major thoroughfare. Therefore, Federal agents, state police and swat teams responded, and police cordoned off the area. The Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, offered his condolences and prayers for the police force of Jersey City, especially for the officer who laid down his life during the standoff and the school children and resident caught up in the lockdown.
After that, Donald Trump also tweeted his thoughts and prayers for the victims and stated that it was a horrific incident.
As because the lockdown continued, phones went unanswered at several businesses in the area. Confirmation was available about the safety of all children in a Catholic school in the area as someone answered the phone. The school runs from pre-school through eighth grade. According to the scanner traffic, police tactical teams were going through the school.
The city located just across the Hudson River in Manhattan heard loud volleys of gunfire intermittently, which subsided at 2 pm. Dozens of bystanders were busy capturing the incident on their mobile phone cameras, quickly whooping and ducking when gunfire bursts filled the air. That the gunfire continued consistently for about an hour was confirmed by one Andy Patel, who works in a liquor store three blocks away from the shooting site and said that police were clearing everyone off the streets.
The Jersey City police
They did not provide any information over the phone. So, according to Hogan Gidley, the White House spokesman, Donald Trump was aware of the incident and monitoring it. Emergency services personnel of the New York police department dashed to the scene, and the counter-terrorism wing of the force was monitoring the situation.
Loud volleys of gunfire shot in videos along one of the city’s main streets show the street lined by law enforcement officers advancing with pointed guns and screaming at bystanders to get off the street and clear their way.
According to law enforcement sources looking into a deadly shooting incident, there is growing concern about the market being specifically targeted. But it is too early to know the motive behind the attack.