Monday - July 20, 2015

A Timely Response

A nasty crime spree in my general area comes to a close.

4 murders and 1 attempted murder in NJ (at the east end of Route 78)

A 22-year-old Elizabeth man has been charged with three homicides and one nonfatal shooting in Elizabeth on June 25 as well as the shooting death of his cousin the month before.
...
In Union County, West has been charged with the shooting deaths of Dennis Vega, 28, Jamil Payne, 29, Kelvin Nelson, 32, all of Elizabeth, who were killed on June 25 and the May 18 shooting death of West’s cousin, Michael Thompkins, 29, in the hallway of his Elizabeth home. West also is facing attempted murder and weapons charges in connection with the June 25 shooting of Richard Marte, 24, of Elizabeth. Park said Marte is recovering from his injuries but is expected to survive.

“We have never seen one individual commit this type of shootings spree, murder spree in such a short period of time in this county,” Park said Thursday during a news conference.
...
[Acting Union County Prosecutor Grace H. ] Park said Todd West was charged with murder and a number of weapons offenses after he was arrested this week in Pennsylvania in connection with two July 5 homicides in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where he has family and one in Easton, Pennsylvania.

3 murders and 2 attempted murders just over the border in PA, plus a series of early morning muggings. (where Route 78 crosses into PA)

Twenty-nine minutes after buying ammunition for a .38-caliber revolver at a Walmart, three men in a white sport utility vehicle opened fire early Sunday in Easton’s West Ward, the start of a bloody rampage that left three dead, authorities said Tuesday in announcing arrests.

Kory Ketrow, 22, was gunned down at 3:14 a.m. in the 1100 block of Lehigh Street as he walked home. Minutes later, about a mile away, one of the men in the SUV fired at a couple driving near Route 22 in Easton’s downtown, authorities said.

That couple was spared when the shooter missed his mark, but authorities said the spree of indiscriminate shooting was not over.

The men in the SUV made their way to Allentown, where they opened fire on Francine E. Ramos, 32, and Trevor D. Gray, 21, two Allentown residents riding in a car near Sixth and Greenleaf streets, authorities said.

Ramos crashed into the SUV in an attempt to get away, authorities said, but she was found dead in her car at 3:59 a.m. Gray died a short time later.

At separate news conferences detailing the violent crime spree, authorities in Lehigh and Northampton counties said they did not know why the three men arrested — one from Easton and two from New Jersey —fired at people randomly early Sunday morning.

“Based on the evidence, all of these acts, all of them, appear to be completely random,” Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin said Tuesday afternoon.

Robert A. Jourdain, 20, of Easton; Todd West, 22, of Elizabeth, N.J.; and Kareem Mitchell, 23, of Newark, N.J., were arrested Monday and face three counts of homicide in the killings, and two counts of attempted homicide in the downtown Easton shooting.

Jourdain and West also were charged in three Allentown knifepoint muggings that happened the day after the killings, police said. They were arrested when Allentown patrolmen chased them down minutes after the third Monday morning mugging. Mitchell turned himself in later that day.

That makes 7 murders and 3 attempted murders, for a total of 10 shootings. All by the same guy, with the same gun, although sometimes he had some help with him.

So what’s the public outcry? Stop selling ammo late night at Wal-mart.

Friends and loved ones of Kory Ketrow say they’lll advocate for legislation that regulates the late-night sale of bullets.

Ketrow, 22, of Easton, was fatally shot at 3:15 a.m. on July 5 as he walked home in the city’s West Ward.
Todd West (Courtesy photo)Jim Deegan | For lehighvalleylive.com

He was a random victim who authorities say didn’t know his assailant, identified by police as Todd West, 22, of Elizabeth, N.J.

West killed Ketrow and two other people in Allentown with ammunition purchased at 2:45 that morning at the Wal-Mart in Lower Nazareth Township, police said.

“I think Wal-Mart should be held accountable,” said Rich Bader, whose family took in Ketrow the past few years. “I don’t understand what a young man 20 years of age is doing coming in to buy ammo at that hour and he gets it. It shouldn’t happen.”

Police say 20-year-old Robert Jourdain, of Easton, who is among three men charged in the three killings with West, bought the .38-caliber bullets used in shootings.

A spokesman for Wal-Mart couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Bader said he’s only just begun to rally support for a change in the law that would outlaw bullet sales at certain times. It would be called “Kory’s Law” and forbid ammunition sales between 10 at night and 5 in the morning, he said.

“I feel Kory didn’t die in vain. He died for a reason,” said Bader, who has a 21-year-old son of his own. “I believe the reason is we’ll be able to change some gun laws.

I feel bad for these people, I do. It’s horrible that these lives were snuffed out for no reason at all by some psychotic bastard. But if had had to wait another few hours to get more bullets, then the shootings would have just happened the next night. Most likely to some other people. And he’d still have more than half a box of ammo left, and who knows, he could still be out there on the lamb.  I’m not really sure that outlawing late night sales would do a thing, other than perhaps annoy some hunters somewhere down the line in the fall.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/20/2015 at 02:28 PM   
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control • Racism and race relations •  
• Comments (4) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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