Posted on 08/06/2007 8:17:08 AM PDT by Calpernia
NEWARK, N.J. -- Three of the young people had been ordered to line up against a wall on the weedy steps behind an elementary school and were shot to death from close range. A fourth was found alive by police slumped near a set of bleachers about 30 feet away, with gunshot and knife wounds to her head.
All were from Newark; and all would soon either start or resume their lives away from the violent city, at a college hundreds of miles away.
Ofemi Hightower been accepted Thursday to Delaware State University after two years of rejection letters. Terrance Aerial was a business major there and an ordained minister, while his sister Natasha was to depart for Dover after the weekend to return to summer classes and a job at a Subway sandwich shop.
Deshawn Harvey was also due back at the university this week for his job in the school's administration building.
Essex County Prosecutor Paula Dow said authorities don't have any suspects nor a motive in the murders of Hightower, Harvey and Terrance Aerial. Natasha Aerial is listed in fair condition at Newark's University Hospital.
"They were good kids,'' Dow said, adding that none had criminal records and went to the lot behind Mount Vernon School Saturday night to hang out and listen to music.
The Aerials' mother, Renee Tucker, said the last time she saw her children was around 10:30 p.m. Saturday, when they told her they were going around the corner to get something to eat.
"They said they were going to come right back to the house,'' Tucker said.
Instead, sirens raced through her Vailsburg neighborhood just before midnight, because someone heard gunshots and screams behind the school and called police.
Carlos Holmes, a spokesman for the university, said Natasha Aerial and Harvey were to be juniors this year. He had little or no information on the other two, other than someone with a name spelled similarly to Hightower's had been rejected by the school several times in the last few years.
Prosecutor Dow also reported a fourth homicide in the city Sunday morning, also in the Vailsburg section. Detectives believe the shooting death of Quintez Waller on Smith Street was in retaliation for a shooting hours earlier up the block.
Those kids didn’t sound like one of their own. They sounded like achievers.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1883339/posts
Local Arrests in Newark Slayings
Not the Bloods, MS-13
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1420911/posts
America’s Most Dangerous Gang
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1883724/posts
SIXTH BUST IN NEWARK TRIPLE SLAY (killer illegals aided and betted by legal system)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.