Four College Students Shot Execution-Style in Newark, N.J.

[Derius_T]

Four College Students Shot Execution-Style in Newark, N.J.
Monday , August 06, 2007



NEWARK, N.J. —

Three friends were forced to kneel against a wall behind an elementary school and were shot to death at close range, and a fourth was found about 30 feet away with gunshot and knife wounds to her head, police said.


All were from Newark and planned to attend Delaware State University this fall. Paul Loriquet, a spokesman for the Essex County Prosecutor's office, said Monday no arrests had been made and authorities had not identified suspects.

Mayor Cory A. Booker was scheduled to hold a news conference at 1:30 p.m. None of the victims had criminal records, authorities said. "They were good kids," Essex County Prosecutor Paul Dow said.

The four had been listening to music in a parking lot behind Mount Vernon School when they were gradually joined by a group of men, authorities said. Newark Police Director Garry McCarthy said the four exchanged text messages
indicating they sensed trouble and believed they should leave, but were attacked before they could do so.

Police said the attackers shot one young woman, then forced her three companions down an alley, lined them up against a wall, made them kneel and shot each in the head.

Natasha Aerial, 19, was listed in fair condition at Newark's University Hospital, authorities said. Police identified her companions as her brother, Terrance Aerial, 18, Iofemi Hightower, 20, and Dashon Harvey, 20.

The Aerials' mother, Renee Tucker, said the last time she saw them 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.

In the wake of the killings, Booker again found himself defending his administration's inability to make a dent in the city's alarming murder rate. "He doesn't deserve another day, another second, while our children are at stake," said Donna Jackson, president of Take Back Our Streets, a community-based organization.

"Anyone who has children in the city is in panic mode. It takes something like this for people to open up their eyes and understand that not every
person killed in Newark is a drug dealer."

Booker's office didn't immediately return a call for comment on Monday.

On Monday, Booker spoke to children at the school, which sits in a middle-class neighborhood about a quarter-mile from the campus of Seton Hall University.

A month ago, Booker and Police Director Garry McCarthy announced that crime in the city had fallen by 20 percent in the first six months of 2007 compared to a year ago. Yet despite decreases in the number of rapes, aggravated assaults and robberies, the murders have continued at an alarming rate.

Saturday night's killings, along with an unrelated shooting over the weekend that killed a Montclair man, brought Newark's murder total to 60 in 2007. That is three fewer than in the same period in 2006. But that statistic obscures a more disturbing one: 17 people have been killed in the city in the eight weeks since June 12, a rate that would surpass 2006's total of 106 murders for the calendar year.

Harvey's page on MySpace.com was filled with messages from friends on Monday. On the page, Harvey described himself as a sometime runway model whose heroes were Superman and Martin Luther King "and last but not least, My DAD," and who planned to graduate from Delaware State in 2009 with a degree in psychology.

Hightower was a motivated student who had recently enrolled at Delaware State, according to great uncle John McClain.

"She was one of the most beautiful ladies you'd ever want to meet," McClain said. "Very smart, very intelligent. She wanted to be something in life."

At Delaware State, officials said the school plans to hold a memorial service Aug. 28, after the student body returns for the fall semester. "We are deeply saddened over the violent shooting incident that took the lives of two of our students and left one seriously injured," university President Allen Sessoms said in a statement.

"While the murder of the two students is a terribly loss in human terms, the facts that they were a part of the DSU family and were striving to earn a degree, create a bright future for themselves and become a solid
contributors to society, makes this violent act especially tragic and senseless."


Visit FOXNews.com's Crime Center for complete coverage.

[Alleykat]

Uncivilized, savage, tribal gang behavior. Happens every day, somewhere!

[Manedwolf]

More gang culture violence, more utter failure of NJ's "gun laws". It's Newark. That's how they roll there. What else is new?

Ten to one none of the neighbors saw anything, either. In that sort of city, nobody saw anything even if they saw the whole thing.

[Bruxley]

I changed my mind.

[SatanzBountyHunter]

Didn't New Jersey also recently say they were going to get rid of the death penalty? Sounds like they still need it. I am glad the 'Take Back Our Streets' group is holding the mayor accountable and getting active in fighting neighborhood violence.

[Rob308]

Not really surprising to me. Newark has a lot of gang problems and it has a lot of heroin addicts. The heroin addicts pay the gangs members salary. They also have an A- rating from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership. The gang members don't care about "good" gun control laws because they are law breaking criminals.

The result of these stupid gun control laws and stupid drug laws, is a criminals paradise. The people can't protect themselves and the gangs thrive selling guns and drugs on the black market. Police are busy arresting and imprisoning people who normally follow laws while violent gang members run free in the streets. Murderers, rapists, and robbers are set free from prison because prisons are crowded with gun and drug offenders.

Many good people have had their lives destroyed or taken away from them, thanks to the many draconian laws that these brainless politicians have put into place. Someone is probably dying right now, because laws had made it too hard to buy a weapon.

Ten to one none of the neighbors saw anything, either. In that sort of city, nobody saw anything even if they saw the whole thing.

Yeah, it's because nobody wants to be labeled a snitch by gang members. It can get you killed.

[yomama]

Just had a daughter, and one day she will go to college. I don't care what the laws are, she's packing.

[K80Geoff]

So I guess the Mayor of Newark will be whining about the gun laws in neighboring Pennsylvania as the cause of the deaths.

[Jets2007]

Savage behavior.

[Antipitas]

I'm just home, eating lunch. I would hope that when I log on next (after work) that someone will have been able to relate how this story, while a regrettable and heinous crime, is somehow related to a legal question or a political agenda.

Otherwise, it gets locked.

[Derius_T]

Sorry Anti, maybe I stuck it in the wrong forum, but it is a sobering story, and one that I felt should be read. People in that area should sit up and take notice that things have gotten that bad, and that their rights have been trampled to death. Also, that because of their states laws as they are, they cannot expect to be protected, nor are they permitted to easily and readily protect themselves.

This becomes very political. People need to write their reps and other political powers that be in this state, using stories like this, and demand that gun laws be changed. If you live in a state where the gang problem is so bad that innocent kids are being executed in a SCHOOL PARKING LOT, something legal needs to be done.....

[JuanCarlos]

Well, considering that it appears that the kids actually say these guys coming (and thus would have had time to prepare) it's actually possible that NJ's gun laws actually took away what might have been a valid chance at self defense for these kids.

And not just NJ. In most other states these kids, being 18-20, would not have been allowed to purchase or carry a handgun.

[Manedwolf]

I'd say it has to do with legal and political just because it shows how completely failed NJ's gun laws are?

[Antipitas]

No Derius, you're in the right forum.

All too often, we post news stories like this and we fail to actually point out the real-life consequences of the laws that are enacted by our politicians.

Stories like this, should motivate us to make pests of ourselves. Demand the rights to use whatever method we decide makes us safer. Disarming the people serves no one but the criminals among us.

My sole purpose in my prior post was to motivate you to state why this (and similar) stories are posted to L&P.

Do we post these just for "shock value?" Then they will get locked. If however, they are posted for a purpose; such as the legal system or the political system that prevents one from defending your own life, then we should be talking about that. Discussing how we can change the laws. How we can be more effective in our activism.

Not everyone remarking, "How Dreadful!" or some such. Everyone is familiar with Title 10 USC section 310(a), yes? So how does a citizen become familiar with arms at 17 (age of militia service), when by many state laws and certainly other federal laws, they can't buy or in many cases even posses a gun?

If Parker is upheld, this doesn't limit the type guns to "militia" weapons, but extends it to any firearm used for self protection.

So where is the disconnect? Where is the activism?

[Derius_T]

I agree with what you are saying, and understand your point. The sad reality in all this is that not everyone who would read this story, even if it were national evening news top story, and KNEW what happened could have been prevented by changing these idiot gun laws, would take the time to speak up, or do ANYTHING to change them, other than mutter on some internet forums.

We need to speak out when we see these kinds of things, and more importantly we need to educate the gun haters as to how ineffective their strict gun laws are on criminals. They only keep innocent kids like these from being able to properly defend themselves.

If we could somehow start holding these ignorant lawmakers RESPONSIBLE for the innocent blood that is shed BECAUSE of their stupid laws, and start prosecuting them as accomplices because they destroyed any chance of these people defending their lives legally, I bet some laws start to change.

Sorry for the big roll....this crap just pisses me off and makes me sick enough to vomit.....

[Justme]

I don't know about NJ, but in most states being in the back parking lot of a school would put the kids in a no firearms no drug zone. Here in Ohio I know it would be illegal for me, even with a CCW, to pick my kid up in the parking lot and have my gun on me or under the seat or something.

So, in this case, even in states with very permissive gun laws the school could be in a no gun zone. I think this shows the stupidity of no gun zones around schools and libraries and such. Obviously violent gang members really don't respect those no gun signs, but those of us who don't want to lose expensive guns and time consuming permits probably will. That's the really scary part.

[Antipitas]

Justme, that's exactly why such cases should be (figuratively) pounded into the heads of our lawmakers.

No amount of gun control would have prevented this tradegy... Or dozens of others like this one. So what was the point, again?

That is what we need to make our legiscritters understand. And that requires people like you and me to get active... And not just on gun boards.

[Manedwolf]

Justme, that's exactly why such cases should be (figuratively) pounded into the heads of our lawmakers.

No amount of gun control would have prevented this tradegy... Or dozens of others like this one. So what was the point, again?

Unfortunately, they'll just look at you with a blank-eyed stare, then bloviate about how it's the fault of states with "lax gun laws" where criminals can buy guns. Which is a lie, but they love it.

They even put it on stadiums, like this one in Boston blaming the neighboring states for Massachusetts' unwillingness to punish criminals and crack down on gang culture.

[Derius_T]

Teen held, man sought in schoolyard slayings

NEW: Murder warrant issued for Jose Carranza, 31, in schoolyard shootings
NEW: Boy, 15, taken into custody Wednesday night

Slayings shocked Newark, New Jersey, where street violence is common


NEWARK, New Jersey (CNN) -- Police arrested a 15-year-old boy and are seeking a man with a criminal record in connection with the execution-style slayings of three college students in a Newark, New Jersey, schoolyard.

Jose Carranza, 31, of Newark, New Jersey, is being sought in the slayings of three college students.

The teen was taken into custody at about 11 p.m. Wednesday, and an arrest warrant has been issued for Jose Carranza, 31, of Newark, authorities said.

Newark's mayor, police commissioner and top prosecutor announced the break in the case at a midday news conference. They said events were continuing to develop rapidly, even as they spoke.

Ballistics evidence, information from the shooting's lone survivor and a fingerprint lifted from a beer bottle at the scene led to the major break in a case that has outraged a city numbed by street violence.

Mayor Cory A. Booker praised the "incredible courage" of survivor Natasha Aeriel, 19. She is in stable condition and under heavy police guard at The University Hospital in Newark, recovering from gunshot and knife wounds.

"From her hospital bed, she has been cooperating with authorities and making identifications," Booker said.

Newark Police Director Garry McCarthy and Essex County Prosecutor Paula Dow asked for the public's help in finding Carranza, who they said has a pending case and three prior arrests. A $150,000 reward is being offered for information.

The warrant seeks Carranza's arrest for three counts of murder, attempted murder, four counts of robbery, conspiracy and weapons offenses. "We believe that others were involved in this heinous crime. We are looking for them," Dow said.

The 15-year-old was not identified because of his age, but Dow said she would seek to try him as an adult. Newark has become accustomed to violence but the slayings on Saturday night touched a nerve. The four friends, ages 18 to 20, were shot while listening to music at the schoolyard.

Three of them -- Terrance Aeriel, 18, Dashon Harvey, 20; and Iofemi Hightower, 20 -- were forced to kneel against a wall and were shot in the head, execution style. Authorities have said robbery appeared to be the motive, but Dow said Tuesday that police also were looking into possible gang involvement.

While Newark has seen 60 homicides this year, the schoolyard killings stood out because the victims, by all accounts, were good kids. All four were enrolled at Delaware State University or were in the process of enrolling.
James Harvey, Dashon's father, described his son Monday as "a good, good student, college student."

"For him to be killed on the streets of Newark needlessly is very unacceptable," he said at a news conference. "They're out here hurting innocent kids," he added. "Innocent people are dying needlessly, unnecessarily and for what? For what? This to has to stop."

Yes it HAS to stop, but its funny how nobody mentions any effective ways to stop it. Like maybe attacking idiot gun control laws that allowed this to happen in the first place. I honestly think that every single politician that signed onto a gun law, that left a person defenseless, which led to their deaths should be held accountable.

[Manedwolf]

Carranza is a documented criminal with a violent past.

- in relation to the suspect.

And why was this guy on the streets?

[JuanCarlos]

- in relation to the suspect.

And why was this guy on the streets?

Because our prisons are so full of people convicted of nothing more than "possession of too much weed too many times" that we have to start letting people out early?

[glockman19]

Very Sad to hear of young lives needlessly and senslessly cut short.

[MD_Willington]

Title 10 USC section 310(a)

Keep in mind I'm from Canada, plenty of .GOV stuff to keep track of up there...

Title 10 USC section 310(a) isn't that the provision that every able body male (or person now for PC freshness) needs to have a firearm for defense of the country...

go easy on me!

[Antipitas]

Don't worry MD, it's an easy read:

USC Title 10, Chapter 13
Sec. 311. Militia: composition and classes

(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied
males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section
313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made
a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United
States and of female citizens of the United States who are members
of the National Guard.

[Bruxley]

Given that definition of Militia, and that it is established law, how do the opponents of Parker contend that the 2nd is NOT for every citizen but ONLY for the militia?

Further, how does the Brady bunch claim pro 2nd folks are only reading the 2nd half of the Amendment?

I'm not asking rhetorically, play devils advocate. What is their reasoning? Is it that they are just counting on the laziness of people to not find out for themselves or do they have a cogent argument (in their opinion)?