Posted on 01/24/2015 10:49:01 AM PST by csvset
One of the women killed early Saturday was Jakela Foster, 19, The World-Herald has learned. Foster had a young son, and according to her Facebook page, was a sales associate at DialAmerica, a telemarketing firm. She had studied culinary arts at Metropolitan Community College.
A party at a northeast Omaha house turned into a killing scene early Saturday when, police said, eight people were shot, including two women who died. Hours earlier, two more people were shot in a house nearby, also during a party, police said. That 10 people were shot within 4½ hours in the Prospect Hill neighborhood of northeast Omaha stunned people who knew the victims and those who did not. Police said they were trying to determine whether the two shootings — just two blocks apart — were linked. Police said no arrests had been made. The investigation, complicated by multiple victims, “will be arduous” and had just begun, Deputy Chief Dave Baker said.
Eight of the victims were shot about 1:45 a.m. in a house at 3402 Parker St., Baker said. The earlier shooting, at 10:10 p.m., occurred 1710 N. 32nd St., about a block away from the Parker Street house. The women who died at the Parker Street house were believed to be in their 20s. At least one of the other victims was in critical condition, police said. Two were in serious condition. Baker did not release information about the condition of three of the victims, who were taken to the Nebraska Medical Center in private vehicles. Beneath a street light a block from the Parker Street house in the hours after the shooting, two men hugged each other and moaned. A relative of one of the victims pleaded with an officer to take her to the body. "I just want to know if it's her," she said again and again.
The woman was not allowed past the yellow crime scene tape that ringed the area around the shooting scene. Not long after, as the emotions of the victims' relatives flared at the Nebraska Medical Center, there was a large disturbance that drew officers from across the city to quell. Baker said two people were arrested on suspicion of disorderly conduct. For a time, the emergency entrance to the medical center was closed. Omaha police locked down the Nebraska Medical Center from 3 a.m. to 3:30 a.m. after "scuffles" took place outside the emergency department, said Taylor Wilson, a hospital spokesman. Patients already inside the emergency department were not moved. "Everything operated as normal inside. We just were not allowing other people to come in at that point," Wilson said.
He was not aware of any ambulances that were diverted during the lockdown. The shootings added to a burst of violence in the city this month and were the third and fourth homicides this week. Roberto Gonzalez, 20, was shot to death Thursday morning near 24th and P Streets. Another man, Jameson Toler, 29, was shot and killed the same morning in a parking lot at the northwest corner of Maple Street and Maplewood Boulevard. There have been eight homicides in Omaha this year. At this time last year, there had been one.
Top police officials, including Chief Todd Schmaderer, his deputy chiefs and the northeast precinct captain, went to the Parker Street scene.
About an hour after the shootings, officers raced to a nearby block, where there was a report of a person walking with a gun and firing it. No one was struck, and one person was taken into custody, Baker said. He did not say whether the incident had any connection to the earlier shootings.
In the 10 p.m. shooting, two people at a gathering inside the North 32nd Street house were shot by someone firing from outside, perhaps from a vehicle, police said. Liondell Richard, 27, was hit in the lower part of his body and Mahogany Phillip, 38, was shot in an arm. Neither injury was considered life-threatening, Lt. Mark Matuza said.
About 20 people were inside the house at the time of the North 32nd Street shootings, Matuza said. People were pushing and shoving one another as police arrived, and at least two people were ticketed on suspicion of disorderly conduct, he said.
Richard was taken by ambulance to the Nebraska Medical Center; Phillip went there in a private vehicle. Saturday morning, police maintained a scene at least one block in each direction of 34th and Parker Streets. The area, near Prospect Hill Cemetery, is also home to a barber shop, Shaves and Fades, at 33rd and Parker Streets, and a liquor store.
The home at 1710 N. 32nd St., where the first shooting occurred, sits across the street from a playground and a community garden.
Friends and family of the victims gathered at 33rd and Parker Streets Saturday morning, talking with police and comforting each other. City Councilman Ben Gray and Barbara Robinson, program manager for Impact One Community Connection, an Omaha anti-violence group, were also there. Police said anyone with information on the violence should call the homicide unit at 402-444-5656. To report tips anonymously, call Crime Stoppers at 402-444-7867.
Stay with Omaha.com for more on this developing story.
Have the Central and South American cartels moved in?
Omaha shootings that killed 3 likely tied to vendettas within gang
By Emerson Clarridge, Maggie O’Brien and Paige Yowell / World-Herald staff writers
A lingering dispute among three sects of the Bloods gang is likely behind one of the worst single shootings in recent Omaha history, according to a person familiar with the police investigation.
Three people were slain and five others were wounded at 1:44 a.m. Saturday during a party at a northeast Omaha house. Four men and four women were hit as multiple shooters exchanged gunfire, Police Chief Todd Schmaderer said.
The eight were among 10 people struck by bullets late Friday and early Saturday. “The violence we are seeing here is the product of gang members who have no regard for human life,” the chief said at a press conference Saturday afternoon. “We will do everything in our power to bring the shooters to justice.” Top police officials, including Schmaderer and his deputy chiefs, were at the Parker Street scene in the early morning hours. He said some suspected gang members who were there — amid sobbing family members — showed no compassion for the dead. “We will not stand for this level of violence,” the chief said.
Schmaderer also said the latest violence is part of a constant cycle of gang retaliation that goes back as much as two or three years. Those killed at 3402 Parker St. were Jakela Foster, 19, Latecia J. Fox, 24, and Cameron R. Harris, 26. Both women were pronounced dead in the front yard; Harris died in the afternoon at the Nebraska Medical Center.
The four male victims shot at that address are documented gang members, the chief said. He said the house was unoccupied and empty of furnishings, but partygoers were inside and outside the home.
Two people were shot about a block away, at 1710 N. 32nd St., just after 10 p.m. Friday. Their injuries were not considered life-threatening. The chief also described that shooting as gang-related.
He vowed a heavier police presence in the area to prevent retaliation. But Schmaderer also called on the community to help — to provide information to police.
He said “the vast majority” of the 40 to 50 people at the party would not talk to police because they might have feared retaliation, but he urged them to contact authorities now. He promised to keep any contacts confidential.
“We have means at our disposal to protect what you say to us and protect your safety,” the chief said. Mayor Jean Stothert echoed the chief’s call for help. “These witnesses must cooperate with police to arrest those responsible,” she said in a statement. “We need a cooperating community.” Nearly half of Omaha’s 33 homicides last year involved either a victim or suspect with a gang affiliation, police have said.
The Parker Street shooting appears to be one of the worst in recent Omaha history.
No one could recall a single crime scene with that many shooting victims, other than the mass shooting at the Von Maur department store in 2007. Eight people were slain there and five injured by a gunman who took his own life after his rampage.
In July 2012, 10 people were injured in six separate shooting incidents over a weekend. All those victims survived.
One of the victims of Saturday’s Parker Street shooting, Cameron R. Harris, was injured in a Nov. 29 shooting at a west Omaha bar. Harris and two other men were shot but not seriously hurt about 1 a.m. in the parking lot of the Rehab Lounge near 120th Street and West Center Road. David J. Brown, 21, is awaiting trial on felony assault charges. The same gang factions involved in the Parker Street homicides also feuded at Native Omaha Days in 2013, the person familiar with Saturday’s case said.
Fights at hospital
The emotions of the victims’ relatives flared at the Nebraska Medical Center about an hour after the Parker Street shooting. A large disturbance drew officers from across the city to quell the crowd. Two people were arrested on suspicion of disorderly conduct, and one person had to be subdued with a stun gun.
Omaha police locked down the facility from 3 to 3:30 a.m. after “scuffles” took place outside the emergency department, said Taylor Wilson, a hospital spokesman. Patients already inside the emergency department were not moved.
“Everything operated as normal inside. We just were not allowing other people to come in at that point,” Wilson said. He was not aware of any ambulances that were diverted during the lockdown.
Beneath a street light shortly before dawn near the Parker Street shooting scene, two men hugged each other and moaned. A relative of one of the victims pleaded unsuccessfully with a police officer to take her to one of the bodies in the front yard of the home at 3402 Parker St.
“I just want to know if it’s her,” she said again and again. Later in the morning, more friends and family of the victims gathered, talking with police and comforting each other.
The neighborhood where the shootings occurred, near Prospect Hill Cemetery, is also home to a barbershop, Shaves and Fades, and a liquor store. The house where the shooting occurred earlier Friday is near a playground and community garden.
Other violence
The weekend shootings follow a burst of violence in the city this month that included two other slayings last week. Roberto Gonzalez, 20, was shot to death Thursday near 24th and P Streets. Jameson Toler, 29, was shot and killed the same morning in a parking lot at the northwest corner of Maple Street and Maplewood Boulevard.
The city has recorded nine homicides this year, 11 since Dec. 21. At this time last year, there had been one. Stothert, who was in St. Louis visiting her mother this weekend, also said in her statement: “Chief Todd Schmaderer and I are committed to reducing gun violence through community policing, providing resources our officers need and making our city safe for everyone.”
Contact the writers: 402-444-3106, emerson.clarridge@owh.com; 402-444-3100, maggie.obrien@owh.com; 402-444-1414, paige.yowell@owh.com
Gang sects? Who knew ? Kinda sort of like Muslims then?
LOOK at how the Civil Rights Movement has succeeded in helping urban blacks “escape” the mean streets of the cities!
Three people were killed and five others wounded after a shooting at a home near 34th and Parker Streets. The family of one of the homicide victims, 19-year-old JaKela Foster, said they are heartbroken and in disbelief.
"To go around shooting into a crowd of people, it takes people's children. It just needs to stop and now my grandson is left with no mother," said Kristina Young, Foster's mother. Foster leaves behind a 1-year-old son, who her family said she adored.
Foster's family members gathered outside the crime scene for hours, crying and embracing each other as they waited to get answers from investigators. The longer they waited, the more the loss sunk in. "They took that away from us. They took that away from my nephew, from me, from my mom, and for what? For territory that doesn't even belong to you? For some rivalry? It's ridiculous," said Desean Young, Foster's brother.
Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmaderer said in an afternoon press conference Saturday that the violence was gang-related. He said there were 40 to 50 people at a house party in an unoccupied house.
The targets of the gunfire were unclear, but Foster's mother said she warned her daughter not to go to the party earlier in the week, fearing past violence in the area. But she said Foster went anyway, and did not tell her that she was going.
"When she left my house last night she told me she was going somewhere completely different so when I got the call at 1:45, yeah it's hard, because I asked her not to," said Young. Fighting tears she offered this warning to other teens: "Maybe you need to listen to your parents when they try to give you advice because parents should not have to bury their children."
Foster said she hopes investigators will quickly find the person or people responsible for the shooting.
Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call the OPD Homicide Unit at 402-444-5656 or Omaha Crime Stoppers at 402-444-STOP.
The 19-year old victim had a 1-yr old son. Her mother has a ‘boyfriend’. No mention of fathers or husbands.
Just reading between the lines here.
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