NEWARK — Four people were killed and two others were injured in a series of attacks that occurred over a 12-hour period Tuesday and today in the state's largest city, officials said.
The deaths mark the latest wave of violence in Newark, which has seen its homicide total jump to 82 so far this year and could surpass 100 for the first time since 2007.
The four people killed in the latest wave of violence were targeted, according to Police Director Samuel DeMaio, who described the slayings as "pre-meditated, calculated, murders."
The bloodshed began around 3:45 p.m. Tuesday, when 54-year-old Ruby Green and her 64-year-old boyfriend were found dead inside their South 11th Street home, Essex County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Thomas Fennelly said.
Green was stabbed multiple times, while her boyfriend was beaten around the head and face, according to law enforcement sources who spoke to The Star-Ledger on Tuesday. The boyfriend, whose identity has been withheld until prosecutors can locate his family, was pronounced dead at the scene, Fennelly said. Green died at University Hospital in Newark.
Green was a lifelong member of the Providence Missionary Baptist Church and is survived by a daughter and granddaughter, said the Rev. J. Vincent Grove, pastor of the church. She will be mourned during a memorial service there this evening.
Around 8 p.m. Tuesday, Dana Andre Pridgen, 38, of East Orange, was gunned down on West End Avenue, less than two miles from where Green and her boyfriend were killed, Acting Essex County Prosecutor Carolyn Murray said.
DeMaio said Pridgen, who was released from prison less than three months ago, was shot by multiple assailants while sitting inside a parked car. Nearly 30 rounds were fired during the attack, according to DeMaio, who said Pridgen was trying to reclaim his former drug territory in the weeks before the shooting.
"It appears that when he got back from jail he tried to get right back into the game," DeMaio said.
Three hours later, Jahid Jordan, 22, of Irvington, was shot and killed on South Orange Avenue, Murray said. DeMaio said a drug dispute was also likely the motive behind Jordan's killing.
The violence culminated 3 a.m. today when two people were shot in an attack near the intersection of East Peddie Street and Elizabeth Avenue, DeMaio said. Both victims are expected to survive, but investigators have not determined a motive or suspect in the event.
The killings of Pridgen and Jordan were not linked to the couple's death, and police have made no arrests, DeMaio said. The spasm in violence follows a three-day span that left five people dead last week, and a series of slaying that left ten people dead in ten days in late August and early September.
There have been 82 homicides so far this year, up from 72 at this point last year, DeMaio said. With overall crime down by 7 percent and non-fatal shootings down 16 percent in 2013, DeMaio said the surge in homicides is not indicative of a citywide increase in violence.
"When someone has the drive and the motive to per-meditate, calculate, stalk and kill someone, it's a difficult thing to stop," DeMaio said. "What we're seeing is more of these types of shootings that are out and out assassinations then we've seen in previous years."
During a press conference held on Wednesday morning to announce his public safety plan, mayoral candidate and former assistant attorney general Shavar Jeffries said city residents would not have to live in fear if Newark's leaders were committed to combating the violence.
"We don't have to read article after article as we did waking this up this morning of three more Newarkers murdered," he told a crowd at the Philemon Missionary Baptist Church. "We don't have to live like this but we'll continue to live like this if we don't have leaders who know what they're doing."
Star-Ledger Staff Writers Seth Augenstein and David Giambusso contributed to this report.
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