SENSELESS VIOLENCE
City officials ID victim of 16th homicide of the year »
TRENTON » The man stabbed to death Sunday night in the capital city was identified as 34-yearold Robert Neal.
Neal was stabbed in the chest on the 200 block of Rosemont Avenue, police sources said. Authorities said Neal attempted to intervene in a fight that broke out during a party at a home on the block.
Neal’s death, the 16th homicide in the capital city this year, equaled last year’s murder total.
Trenton is on pace to eclipse its second-deadliest year on record, when it had 31 murders in 2005, during the gang wars.
That record was broken in 2013, when the city experienced 37 murders, two years after more than 100 officers were laid off during a budget crunch.
Trenton Police director Sheilah Coley has come under heavy criticism in recent weeks, accused of not having a plan to combat the violence on the streets.
She is facing a MCPO-led probe of her actions during the May 31 riot, after two people filed complaints against her for telling officers responding to an arson call at Tony Liquor to stand down.
The order was captured by police body-camera and provided to The Trentonian.
Coley was involved in a heated executive session with council last week. She has threatened to sue the city and councilman George Muschal who admitted to calling her “clueless” during the closed-door session.
He denied Coley’s allegation that he viciously attacked her because of her race and gender and demand an apology from the police director, who was in the session to discuss the firing of TPD cop Lino Rosario.
Some of Coley’s actions include deploying foot patrols in downtown Trenton and putting forth a call to action for residents to partner with cops to help make neighborhoods safer after a 12-year-old girl was shot on Wood Street while playing at a park with her sister.
The fatal stabbing happened minutes after another reported stabbing on the 300 block of Genesee Street around 8 p.m.
The victim was drinking with a friend when a man jumped off his bike and attacked the man with a knife. The man suffered three wounds, underwent emergency surgery was listed in stable condition. No arrests were made.
The stabbings were part of a violent span as police said a man was admitted to Capital Health Regional Medical Center the same night with a gunshot wound following a shooting on the 200 block of Walnut Avenue.
The man was shot in the chest Sunday around 8:20 p.m. Officers found a group of people on the block. The victim underwent emergency surgery and was listed in stable condition. No arrests have been made.
Then, two people were shot early Monday morning on the 100 block of Perry Street around 12:30 a.m. The assailant sprayed more than 20 rounds near Perry and North Montgomery streets, police sources said.
One victim suffered a graze wound and another was shot in the hand, police said. Both victims were uncooperative.