Jersey City shootout at least 6 dead cop,suspects,civilians

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One police officer was shot in the head and at least two others hurt during what a law enforcement source described as an "ambush" active shooter situation at a bodega in Jersey City Tuesday, according to a senior law enforcement official and local authorities. Every public city school was locked down as multiple local, state and federal teams responded.

The situation is fluid and information is developing rapidly. One law enforcement source said at least one man was holed up in a bodega with a long gun for hours. That man and another suspect are believed to have been injured in the hours-long shootout, a senior official briefed on the matter says. One suspect was believed to still be in the bodega, while another may have tried to escape to a nearby school.

The total number of victims remains unknown. Police responded en masse to Jersey City Medical Center, according to News 4 reporters on the scene. It's believed the officer who was shot in the head was taken there; that officer was said to be in grave condition.

It wasn't clear if the other two injured officers were wounded by gunfire, but both were expected to survive, a senior official told News 4

Four other people were thought to be inside the bodega, the senior official said, stressing the highly preliminary nature of the evolving investigation. It wasn't clear if any of those four were hurt or considered victims or suspects.

Heavily armed local and state officers in SWAT trucks swarmed the scene, ducking behind doorways and store entrances -- some even crawling along sidewalks, closely pressed to the ground -- as they zeroed in on the bodega. Gunshots -- dozens of them, it appeared -- continued to ring out throughout the afternoon, based on audio from the scene. The streets in the immediate area were totally empty of what would normally be heavy pedestrian and vehicular traffic.

Senior law enforcement officials tell News 4 it appears the suspect or suspects arrived at the scene in a truck. They want to check that truck as a precaution to ensure the vehicle itself is not a threat.

Federal ATF and FBI agents in Newark also confirmed they were responding to the scene to assist as needed, as was the NYPD's Special Ops team. About a dozen schools in the vicinity were locked down initially. By 2 p.m., the lockdown order extended to every public school in the entire city, the district's superintendent said.

Mass transit was also affected, with a number of bus and rail suspensions.

Andy Patel works at a liquor store about three blocks away from the site of the shooting site and said there had been consistent gunfire fire for about an hour. There was a brief pause -- and cops used the time to clear streets.

As many as six people may be dead -- including a police officer, two suspects and three civilians -- during an "ambush" active shooter situation at a bodega in Jersey City Tuesday, officials and law enforcement sources said.

Law enforcement sources identified the dead officer as a married father of five.

At least one wounded civilian, along with two wounded officers, are expected to survive, officials said.

According to three senior law enforcement officials, the shoot-out began as a homicide investigation. The deceased officer approached suspects in that investigation and was shot and killed. The suspects then fled into the bodega, where the standoff started.

One law enforcement source said at least one man was holed up in a bodega with a long gun for hours. That man and another suspect are believed to have been injured in the hours-long shootout, a senior official briefed on the matter says. One suspect was believed to still be in the bodega, while another may have tried to escape to a nearby school

Three members of a small Jewish community and a cherished police officer were killed in addition to two suspects during a protracted shootout at a kosher supermarket in New Jersey that saw hundreds of bullets exchanged between shooters and police in a residential area chosen as the new home of a fervently religious community priced out of Brooklyn.

“I must have heard over 300 shots. It was all hell at that point,” said Aaron, a volunteer with the Jewish EMS service, Hatzolah, who witnessed most of the shooting between suspects and police in and near the JC Grocery, a kosher mart at 223 Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive.

The shootout took place in the JC Market, a kosher foodstuffs store that serves as the de facto social center of an embryonic Hasidic community in the town just across the Hudson River from Manhattan. Jersey City police had “no inkling” as to motive, said Police Chief Michael Kelly at a 5:30 p.m. press conference. He did say there was no indication that the shooting was a hate crime, and Mayor Steven Fulop said in a different press conference that there was no evidence that the shooting was terrorism-related.

The investigation will take weeks and maybe months, and involves three different crime scenes in addition to a stolen U-Haul that contained an “incendiary device,” Kelly said.

Initial reports described the incident as the result of a confrontation between undercover police and the shooters related to a drug deal, according to the local ABC affiliate, which cited the police department’s “working theory.”

The grocery store sits next to a study hall, the Greenville Beis Midrash, also known as the Greenville Shul, and near an affiliated yeshiva. The area around the store is the home of about 70 families, Yiddish-speaking Hasidic Jews priced out of Brooklyn, according to an article posted on JC.com about a year ago. The community includes members of the Satmar and Bobov sects, as well as others, according to the Yiddish-language press.

Owned by Moishe Ferencz, the grocery store has been in operation since July of 2017, according to incorporation documents filed with the New Jersey Department of the Treasury. It has sandwich and salad bars and also sells Danishes and coffee, said Abraham, who lives in Brooklyn but works in real estate in Jersey City and declined to give his last name.

Ari, who also lives in Brooklyn but works in construction in the area, said he gets his sandwich at the JC Market every day at about noon and liked to talk politics with Ferencz, but was luckily late today. A firearms enthusiast who owns 37 guns, Ari said he’d urged the store owner to arm himself.

“I tell him all the time, ‘Buy a gun, get an open carry license, protect yourself,’” said Ari, who also didn’t want to give his last name. “He didn’t listen.”

By about 4:30 p.m., the 40 students in the yeshiva were being evacuated, according to a Yiddish-language tweet from a community member. Hatzolah had been called to the community to help its children process the incident.

Across the street is a Christian school, Sacred Heart. Every school in Jersey City was locked down; the lockdown was lifted at about 4:30 p.m.

Now that's really close to home....right across the Holland Tunnel!

The gunmen who killed three people at a kosher supermarket after fatally shooting a police officer in Jersey City on Tuesday "targeted the location they attacked,” Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop said late Tuesday.

“Based on our initial investigation (which is ongoing) we now believe the active shooters targeted the location they attacked,” the mayor said on Twitter late Tuesday. “Due to an excess of caution the community may see additional police resources in the days/weeks ahead. We have no indication there are any further threats.”

Fulop’s tweet did not say if investigators believe the shooting was an anti-Semitic hate crime.

The mayor’s tweet was met swiftly with replies demanding clarification, adding to confusion while many details surrounding the attack remained unclear.

New York State Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein, who represents two Brooklyn neighborhoods, was among those calling for clarification late Tuesday, saying in a tweet to Fulop, “with all due respect, if you believe that the Jewish community was ‘TARGETED’ you must say it CLEARLY and MAKE SURE your constituents are protected.”

Rabbi Jack Meyer, co-founder of a Brooklyn-based, Orthodox Jewish emergency relief and bereavement organization, Misaskim, was called to the crime scene in Jersey City Tuesday “to build a bridge” between law enforcement officials investigating the crime and the families of the victims, he said.

He helps provide investigators “whatever information they need from the family,” Meyer said. “We also serve as a chaplain.”

Meyer said it is early in the investigation yet, and as of about 9 p.m., police were still working on making positive identification of the victims. Meyer said he knew and spoke with the father and husband of one of the suspected victims, who was shopping at the time of the crime. He declined to identify the victim.

Jewish law requires the deceased to be buried as quickly as possible, physically intact. After the massacre of 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh last year, Meyer and members of his organization helped remove blood and body fragments that were buried with the deceased, according to published reports.

New York City Councilman Chaim Deutsch said the NYPD was boosting its presence at “high-profile sites, including synagogues.” New York authorities were working with Jersey City police and New Jersey State Police, the councilman said.

“The Mayor of Jersey City has asserted that today’s incident was a deliberate attack targeting the Jewish community,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Twitter.

“This tragically confirms that a growing pattern of violent anti-Semitism has now turned into a crisis for our nation. And now this threat has reached the doorstep of New York City,” de Blasio’s post said.

@NYCMayor
"Although there is no credible or specific threat directed against New York City, I have directed the NYPD to assume a state of high alert.

Tonight, NYPD assets are being redeployed to protect key locations in the Jewish community. Tomorrow, we will announce additional measures."

Officials have not released the names of the shooters or others who died

Two suspects who opened fire at a kosher grocery store in Jersey City, New Jersey, where three died targeted the market, officials said. One of them had a social media page with anti-Jewish writings.

Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop said at a news conference on Wednesday morning that security footage from the Tuesday incident showed the shooters traveling slowly through the streets in a U-Haul van, stopping outside the store armed with long guns and immediately opening fire.

"There were multiple other people on the streets," Public Safety Director James Shea said. "There were many other targets available to them that they bypassed to attack that place. So it was, clearly, that was their target, and they intended to harm people inside there."

Four law enforcement sources familiar with the case identified the suspects as David Anderson and Francine Graham.

According to three sources, Anderson was a one-time follower of the Black Hebrew Israelite movement and his social media pages include anti-police and anti-Jewish writings. Investigators are looking to see if it was Anderson himself who posted that material.

Inside the van used by Anderson and Graham was a note with religious writings, the three sources said.

Shea emphasized that the shooters' motive is not yet clear and is under investigation.

Three civilians were found dead inside the store following what became an hourslong standoff and shootout between police and the suspects. The shooters, who sources described as a man and woman, were also found dead.

At Wednesday's press conference, Shea and Fulop declined to discuss how the detective's death may have been connected to the grocery store shooting.