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Sunday, August 22, 2010

Gang shooting, other violence and possible arson Saturday


Four gang-related incidents in recent days are highlighted in red.


Plainfield's string of shooting incidents continued overnight Saturday, with a male being shot in the leg in the 600-block of Clinton Avenue.

This followed an earlier incident at West 3rd Street and Rushmore Avenue, where shots were fired. No one was hit, but police recovered a handgun at the site.

I'll bet both are gang-related -- the shooting incident is just steps away from Lyman Place where a man was shot in the back Thursday night. A car had been stolen in front of a convenience store in the same area last weekend, possibly to be used in the gang shootout that took place in front of a West Second Street building in the Housing Authority's Elmwood Gardens complex.

Last night's shootings bring the total since early May to at least 22 shooting incidents, with at least 18 persons injured and one death.

Mayor Robinson-Briggs' Tuesday night walks through various neighborhoods continue. The administration went before the Planning Board for a second time on Thursday, trying to get the gunshot-detection technology put on the city's capital improvements plan.

To date, the Robinson-Briggs administration has not come up with an overarching plan for addressing the root issues behind the rise of gangs and any concerted effort to head them off.

Everyone agrees there is no possibility of arresting our way out of this, so what is Robinson-Briggs going to do?

As if the gang-related violence weren't enough, early Saturday evening saw two other incidents --

  • The playground equipment at BUF's daycare at West 7th and Central Avenue was burnt up completely, possibly arson, and

  • A Hispanic male was stabbed and beaten by a group of Hispanic men on West Front Street; the victim was transported by ambulance to RWJ.


    -- Dan Damon [follow]

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    6 comments:

    Maria Pellum, Plainfield Resident said...

    Dan,

    Regarding the burning of the playground. We had a similar incident at Evergreen, except they, or he/she, were not successful. With this Saturday incident it seems the community now has a problem with people liking to set up fires and now that they have been successful who knows what else will be their target. We need better patrolling at night at all of these semi-public open spaces. It is really sad to see the community loosing ground to violent acts.

    Anonymous said...

    Plainfield appears to be a breeding ground for various types of vermin and pestilence!

    Bob said...

    Tuesday night walk-throughs are fine, but that leaves six more nights or days for things to happen. I hope our mayor will come up with a plan. Unfortunately, she's not known for doing that.

    Anonymous said...

    your worried about a playground being burned up rather than having a mayor who has yet to implement some type of plan to make the city of plainfield a better place to live? i think your concern is ridiculous! plainfield is a horrible place to live.

    Anonymous said...

    I got the feeling that very soon it's gonna hit the rotating blades and stick to quite a few people in high positions, whether they like it or not! What we need to do is to get rid of life in prison and replace it with the DEATH penalty!

    Rob said...

    Dan.....Dan....DAN !!!!!! You big negative Nellie you!!!!
    SHARON has been actively handing out fliers and paid Al Sharpton to speak...IF THAT'S NOT proactive and aggressive I don't know what is!
    Rumor on the street is the gangs are actually afraid of the fliers...Seriously...I don't know how this is all gonna go down dude, but seriously...there is some MAJOR fear on the streets..." LOOK OUT, THERE'S ANOTHER FLIER!! " AND...FYI DAN...YOU NEGATIVE PERSON YOU!!! Rumor has it...Hellwig is going to start handing out Craigslist printouts..Yep, that's right..DOUBLE FLIERS!!!!!!