Quintana Vows Action After 'Appalling' Double Homicide

Newark achieved a tragic milestone in 2013: 111 people were killed in the city, the highest total in two decades and an increase blamed at least partly on the rise of multiple homicides. 

Last year, there were nine incidents of murder in Essex County in which there were at least two victims, the highest number of such incidents ever in the county, an Essex County Prosecutor’s Office official, Anthony Ambrose, has said.

On Tuesday, that disturbing trend continued, when someone armed with a gun approached a car parked on Springfield Avenue a little before noon and began firing. Five occupants of the vehicle were hit, including the driver, Akbar Muhammad, the 36-year-old son of a prominent Newark imam. Muhammad died almost instantly.

Also killed was a female passenger,  Shante Spivey, a 28-year-old from East Orange, who was pronounced dead shortly afterward at University Hospital. The remaining three victims were all hospitalized in stable condition Tuesday.

“It is a very sad day for our entire city as we send our thoughts and prayers to all of the families who were affected by yesterday’s tragic shooting incident on Springfield Avenue,” Mayor Luis Quintana said.  “The No. 1 priority of my administration ….. has been and continues to be to address the public safety needs of our residents. We are working with our law enforcement partners at the county and state level to investigate this appalling tragedy.”

Details are still emerging about Tuesday’s shooting, although officials have said at least one person in the car was the intended target of the shooter.

If there was just one intended target, however, this would hardly be the first time in Newark where several uninvolved bystanders also found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. In May, five people—including a 10-year-old girl—were shot when gunmen opened fire at an impromptu memorial service in the West Ward.

And on Christmas, two teenagers were killed when a 15-year-old boy who reportedly felt he had been “dissed” by one of his victims opened fire near a Schley Street home. Although officials also described that incident as a targeted shooting, one of the boy’s victims, 13-year-old Zainee Hailey, was caught in the line of fire while taking out the trash. The third victim of that incident, a 14-year-old boy, died earlier this month from his wounds.   

Tuesday's multiple homicide has spurred calls for action from Quintana and other elected officials.

“There’s a war in our city and the good guys are losing,” North Ward Councilman and mayoral candidate Anibal Ramos said. “When street thugs can carry out a brazen attack in the middle of the day at a busy intersection in the heart of the Central Ward, it tells me that the city must immediately change direction from the status quo.”

Ramos has sought to increase the number of police on the force and recently pushed, successfully, to get 50 recruits into the academy. He has also appealed to members of the state’s Congressional delegation, including Sen. Cory Booker, who served as Newark’s mayor for seven years until October, for more federal assistance to combat crime.