JERSEY CITY AND BEYOND — Happy New Year was anything but in Jersey City for victims of six shootings, a stabbing and an armed robbery on both Friday and Saturday.
According to police spokesperson Lt. Edgar Martinez, a little before midnight on Friday, a 16-year-old Jersey City resident suffered life-threatening injuries after being shot on Grant Avenue in the abdomen three times and once in the back. He was taken to Jersey City Medical Center where he was hospitalized in stable condition.
Martinez then said around 2 a.m., a shoot-out took place outside Brenda’s Place, a bar on Ocean Avenue near New Street, that required units from several police districts at the scene to break up fights that erupted in the aftermath of the shootout. Martinez said Rashauan Johnson, 21, of Jersey City, was charged with aggravated assault and various weapons charges for use of an allegedly stolen gun, and suffered a gunshot wound in the side and was rushed into emergency surgery in critical condition.
Then around 2:30 a.m., a 21-year-old man from Irvington was shot twice, in each hip, on Virginia Avenue during a shooting that stemmed from an argument among a group of friends. Martinez said the victim did not cooperate with police.
Around 3 a.m., Martinez said, police responded to a shooting on Bidwell Avenue where a 26-year-old Jersey City man suffered a non life-threatening gunshot wound.
At 4 a.m., Martinez said, a man was shot in the leg at a hotel on Second Street in downtown Jersey City. A suspect was identified in this shooting, Martinez said.
And at approximately 4:45 a.m. Saturday morning, police responding to a report of a gunshot at a building on Halladay Street discovered a badly beaten man who was bleeding profusely from his face and mouth. Martinez said a suspect was identified in this incident.
In five of the six shooting incidents, no one was arrested and police are still seeking out suspects.
Along with the shootings, Martinez said an armed robbery occurred at around 8 p.m. Friday at a liquor store on Route 440 across the street from Hudson Mall, which was followed by a car jacking of a jitney van that stopped at the traffic light near the store. According to Martinez, two men entered the store and robbed $4,000. No one in the store was hurt nor the driver of the van, Martinez said. Police are still looking for the two suspects.
And Martinez said around 2:45 a.m. Saturday, a Bayonne man was arrested on River Court in the Newport area on charges of aggravated assault for attacking another man with a knife, cutting the man’s ear, nose, throat and chest. The victim did not sustain serious injuries.