5 Die in N.J., N.Y. Nightclub Shootings

Police were searching Saturday for a gunman who walked into a nightclub and opened fire, killing four people and wounding two others. A teenager was killed at a club in nearby New York a few hours later.

There was no immediate indication from authorities that the shootings were linked, but both incidents were under investigation.

In Newark, authorities said about 25 people were in the Cave Lounge when the gunman arrived shortly after 11 p.m.

"We don't know whether there was an intended target right now," police Lt. Derek Glenn said.

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-6/10447760389820.xml

Man shoots, kills 3 inside Newark bar

Mom of 5 among dead in Halsey St. pool hall

Sunday, February 09, 2003

BY PAULA SAHA AND KATIE WANG
Star-Ledger Staff

After getting off work Friday night, Teresa Holder headed to the Cave Lounge, a tiny Newark bar and pool hall where she was a regular. She was going to have a drink with a friend before heading home to her five children.

But shortly after 11 p.m., a man entered the bar and began firing an automatic weapon.

When it was over, Holder, 38, was dead. Also killed were Edward Byers, 35, of Newark and Abdul Malik Muhammad, 37, of Piscataway. At least three others were wounded.

A woman who was in the bar at the time said the whole thing was over in a matter of seconds.

"I was sitting inside having a drink and someone came in and started shooting," said Drusilla Crowley, who returned to the scene yesterday to retrieve her car.

Police were still looking for the gunman last night, canvassing the neighborhood and following up on leads called in to a tip line. "The suspect entered the bar and fired shots," said Lt. Derek Glenn of the Newark police. "It's not known whether he was targeting someone specifically."

The gunman, who was not a regular patron of the bar, said nothing before firing off about two dozen rounds, according to police and a source close to the investigation.

Glenn said the suspect fled on foot, but police are also interested in a dark, two-door vehicle that was seen leaving the Halsey Street bar around the time of the shooting.

Authorities would not release the names of the people who were injured. Police said two of the wounded were in critical condition at University Hospital, while a third had been released.

But a University Hospital spokeswoman said five people were brought to the hospital after the shooting, including one who was pronounced dead on arrival, three who were treated and released and one who was in fair condition yesterday.

Holder, who lived in Newark, was one of about 25 people who were at the Cave, a neighborhood place that area business owners said had been there for years.

"I've been down here for seven years, never had any problems," said John Rodrigues, the owner of J&J Auto Body.

The block around the bar was cordoned off by police tape yesterday, and a shiny red curtain covered the lounge's front window. Neon signs advertising tequila and beer continued to glow through the day.

Raheen Holland of Newark remembered Holder as a good friend and neighbor. "Everybody liked her," he said. "There was not one person who didn't like her."

Holland said Holder, who had four sons and a daughter, was a fixture in the Stratford Place neighborhood where she had lived for 10 years. Several years ago, he said, Holder donated one of her kidneys to her daughter, Aaliyah, the youngest of her children.

Holland said Holder was a regular at the Cave Lounge and went there on Friday night after work with a girlfriend.

Another neighbor, Evelyn Barrino, described Holder as a "beautiful, happy-go-lucky lady" who did not hesitate to donate a kidney when her daughter was sick. Her children ranged in age from a third- grader to a high school senior.

"She was a real mother," said Barrino, who lived next door to Holder for about 10 years. "She loved her kids."

"Teresa was an outgoing person," said another friend, Vanessa Holland of Newark. "She was very comical. She always made you laugh."

Friday's incident was the second club shooting in Newark in the last two weeks. On Jan. 25, a group of men was entering a bar in the basement of the Oriental Grand Lodge on Fulton Street when they were shot on the stairs by three men above them.

Police said there was no evidence the two shootings were related.

Anyone with information on the latest shooting is asked to call Newark police at (973) 733-6000, or the Essex County Prosecutor's Office at (973) 621-4586.

Slightly different AP story from North Jersey News: Gunman kills 3, wounds 3 at bar in Newark

New York Times article: 3 Dead, 3 Hurt When Man Opens Fire With Assault Rifle in Newark Bar

By COREY KILGANNON

NEWARK, Feb. 8 — It was just after 11 p.m. at The Cave Lounge, a lively neighborhood bar on the south edge of downtown Newark. The older crowd was beginning to filter out, handing the evening over to younger patrons already beginning to dance, play pool, and sip cocktails.
The bartender, Sonya Fortenberry, 36, had just slid a Hennessy and water to her friend Teresa Holder when the man with the hooded sweatshirt and the assault rifle appeared in the doorway.
Ms. Fortenberry was laughing with Ms. Holder when the man opened fire.
"I just remember a lot of screaming and blood and bullets everywhere," said Ms. Fortenberry, who was not seriously wounded despite having been shot three times.
"Everything got hit: people, dishes, glasses, the walls. He didn't even step all the way in the door. All you really saw was the gun."
Ms. Holder, believed to be in her 30's, who lived in Newark and was a mother of five, was killed, as were two men identified by the police as Edward Byers, 35, of Newark, and Abdul Malik Muhammad, 37, of Piscataway.
Newark detectives were still searching last night for the gunman, who also wounded three people, including Ms. Fortenberry.
And this low-income, tightknit community was still trying to understand how this warm neighborhood spot could be subjected to such violence.
The two most seriously wounded patrons, a man and a woman whose names were not released, remained in critical condition at University Hospital in Newark, the police said.
About 25 people were in the bar at the time of the shooting, said Lt. Derek Glenn, a spokesman for the Newark Police Department. But neither the police nor witnesses could offer a clue about the killer's motive, if he had one.
The bar is in the ground floor of an aging three-story building on Halsey Street, a hardscrabble block lined with auto body shops and once-majestic buildings that have long since been vacant and boarded up.
A longstanding old-timers' hangout, The Cave, with its cozy feel, pool table and small dance floor, had become popular lately as a weekend late-night spot with the younger local crowd. Neighbors said that the bar had occasional minor fights, but no real violence or other problems. Still, the establishment had hired uniformed security guards as weekend bouncers, from 11 p.m. on.
They patted down patrons only if they were strangers, said Ms. Fortenberry, adding that the guards had not yet taken their usual spots at the door when the gunman appeared.
"This was a family bar where everybody knew everybody," said John Hayes, 36, a construction worker from Newark who was in the bar Friday night. Mr. Hayes described The Cave as a place where patrons favored Hennessy Cognac, hip-hop music and heated matches of pool.
Eight people stood around the pool table just before the gunmen appeared, Mr. Hayes said, and a D.J. had just begun spinning dance records.
"The Cave was like family," he said yesterday, standing in his 11th-floor apartment a block away. He stared past his high school basketball trophies and down toward the bar, where police cars stood guard.
Witnesses described the gunman's weapon as an automatic rifle.
"Most people say it was an AK-47," said Mr. Hayes, who added that he had been a regular at The Cave since he had a job cleaning it as a teenager. "And people in this neighborhood know their guns."
That is precisely the problem with the area, said Thomas Ellis, president of Enough Is Enough, a local anticrime community group. For much of the day, Mr. Ellis was the only person standing in the cold outside the bar.
"You have six people shot, three of them killed, in a poor black neighborhood," he said. "If this happened most other places, you'd have a sea of news cameras and people. But, here, nobody cares. Not even the community."
On Friday night, Ms. Fortenberry said, "The shots probably lasted about 10 or 15 seconds, but it seemed like forever."
She dropped behind the bar and did not realize for five minutes that she had been shot, she said, adding: "I thought I got cut by the broken glass, plus I was in shock."
She was trapped behind the bar by the bullet-riddled bodies of Mr. Muhammad and Mr. Byers, known at the Cave as "Big Cat." Ms. Fortenberry, who also works as a medical assistant, took the men's pulses. Malik had none, but Big Cat had a faint pulse," she said, sobbing lightly.
"I was like, `Big Cat, it's me, baby,' because I used to go out with him."
Ms. Fortenberry, who did not realize she had been shot until paramedics had taken Ms. Holder away, was hospitalized overnight and released.
Leaning on a crutch yesterday and staring at the shuttered bar, she said that friends had persuaded her last year to leave another bartending job to take the one at The Cave.
"They said I'd be much safer at The Cave," she said, "because it's a family bar."

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