Ashnbri
08-06-2007, 08:55 PM
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/08/06/schoolyard.killings.ap/?iref=mpstoryview
Story Highlights
Investigators think the three friends were killed during random robbery
Prosecutor calls young Newark victims "good kids"
Attackers shot to death three friends at close range behind elementary school
Woman with gunshot wounds in fair condition at Newark hospital
Three were killed after being forced to kneel against a wall and then shot in the head at close range Saturday night, police said.
A young woman was found slumped near some bleachers 30 feet away, a gunshot wound to the head but still alive.
The four Newark residents were to attend Delaware State University this fall. No arrests had been made by Monday and authorities had not identified suspects.
The shootings ratcheted up anger in New Jersey's largest city, where the murder rate has risen 50 percent since 1998. The high number of killings have prompted billboards in the downtown area that scream, "HELP WANTED: Stop the Killings in Newark Now!"
"Anyone who has children in the city is in panic mode," Donna Jackson, president of Take Back Our Streets, a community-based organization. "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."
The killings bring Newark's murder total for the year to 60, and put pressure on Mayor Cory A. Booker, who campaigned last year on a promise of reducing crime.
Natasha Aeriel, 19, was listed in fair condition at Newark's University Hospital. Police identified her slain companions as her brother, Terrance Aeriel, 18, Iofemi Hightower, 20, and Dashon Harvey, 20.
Authorities believe the shootings were a random robbery committed by several assailants and that some of the victims may have tried to resist their attackers. They were piecing together details of the attack from interviews with Natasha Aeriel.
Hightower and the Aeriels had been friends since elementary school and played in the marching band at West Side High School. Terrance Aeriel, known as T.J., took Hightower to the school prom in 2006, chauffeured by his sister.
At Delaware State they met Harvey, another musician, and struck up a friendship. Friends and family members said the four were not involved in drinking, drugs or gangs.
They liked to congregate at the school, which sits in a middle-class neighborhood less than a mile from the campus of Seton Hall University, to hang out and listen to music.
Story Highlights
Investigators think the three friends were killed during random robbery
Prosecutor calls young Newark victims "good kids"
Attackers shot to death three friends at close range behind elementary school
Woman with gunshot wounds in fair condition at Newark hospital
Three were killed after being forced to kneel against a wall and then shot in the head at close range Saturday night, police said.
A young woman was found slumped near some bleachers 30 feet away, a gunshot wound to the head but still alive.
The four Newark residents were to attend Delaware State University this fall. No arrests had been made by Monday and authorities had not identified suspects.
The shootings ratcheted up anger in New Jersey's largest city, where the murder rate has risen 50 percent since 1998. The high number of killings have prompted billboards in the downtown area that scream, "HELP WANTED: Stop the Killings in Newark Now!"
"Anyone who has children in the city is in panic mode," Donna Jackson, president of Take Back Our Streets, a community-based organization. "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."
The killings bring Newark's murder total for the year to 60, and put pressure on Mayor Cory A. Booker, who campaigned last year on a promise of reducing crime.
Natasha Aeriel, 19, was listed in fair condition at Newark's University Hospital. Police identified her slain companions as her brother, Terrance Aeriel, 18, Iofemi Hightower, 20, and Dashon Harvey, 20.
Authorities believe the shootings were a random robbery committed by several assailants and that some of the victims may have tried to resist their attackers. They were piecing together details of the attack from interviews with Natasha Aeriel.
Hightower and the Aeriels had been friends since elementary school and played in the marching band at West Side High School. Terrance Aeriel, known as T.J., took Hightower to the school prom in 2006, chauffeured by his sister.
At Delaware State they met Harvey, another musician, and struck up a friendship. Friends and family members said the four were not involved in drinking, drugs or gangs.
They liked to congregate at the school, which sits in a middle-class neighborhood less than a mile from the campus of Seton Hall University, to hang out and listen to music.