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TRENTON — Fifteen people have been killed in the capital city this year, and starting today The Trentonian will be bringing you a new way to look at those killings and the lives that have been lost.
“There have been over 100 shots fired in the city so far,” Trenton Police Director Ralph Rivera Jr. said in a recent interview. “An increase in shootings means more people will be shot, which will eventually mean more people are going to die.”
Homicide Watch Trenton, a partnership between Trentonian.com and Homicide Watch DC, is officially launching today as the place where you can follow our coverage of these tragic events from the moment of the killing through the court system and beyond.
Our new project can be found online at www.trenton. homicidewatch.org. The site’s motto states its mission clearly: Mark every death. Remember every victim. Follow every case.
The police department has said the majority of gunfire has been between acquaintances. “Over 90 percent of the killings in the city this year have been the result of personal disputes, over issues like drugs and dice games,” Rivera said.
Through our partnership with Homicide Watch, we’ll be bringing you comprehensive coverage with text, photos, videos, maps, a searchable database and more. The aim is to provide context in our coverage that could shed light on the motivations, causes and effects of the killings, while examining the response to the violence by the police, the courts and lawmakers.
Authorities in Trenton have been wary of making a correlation between violent crimes and the loss of manpower on the force that stemmed from budget problems. More than 100 officers, one-third of the department’s ranks, were laid off in September 2011.
But at the same time, administrators do say they hope the recent re-hiring of 15 officers and the reinstatement of 14 supervisors will help reduce the number of violent crimes in the city.
“The more visible officers we have on the street, (the more it) would lessen the number of street-level narcotic types of crime or any type of crime which affects a citizen’s quality of life,” said Detective Edelmiro Gozalez Jr.
This year, 13 of 15 homicides were committed with a gun. There was one stabbing death, while the other victim, a 5-year-old girl, died after she was allegedly beaten in her home.
The first homicide victim, I’Kime Melvin, 32, was a paraplegic confined to a wheelchair. He was stabbed to death in his Clearfield Avenue apartment in the city’s island section on Jan. 16.
The year’s second homicide victim, Jose de Jesus Rodriguez, was shot multiple times after getting into an argument with another man. The 20-year-old died on Jan. 18. Willie Y. Figueroa, 19, was arrested and charged in Rodriguez’ death.
Daquan Dowling’s death made front page news when the 23-year-old appeared to be a victim of mistaken identity. On Jan. 30, he was driving on Route 29 near the Statehouse when his car was hit with gunfire. According to authorities, Dowling, who was killed instantly, was not the target of the shooting. The target was his passenger, who was the owner of the car, but the tinted windows on their vehicle prevented the shooters from seeing that Dowling was driving at the time. Two men, Anthony Marks and William Mitchell, were arrested in June in the killing.
Iridious Wise (a.k.a. Pooh Wally) was gunned down March 14 in a stairway of a building on East State Street. The 32-year-old was found dead from a gunshot wound.
William Emmanuel was shot March 27, when a motorist picked him up at 11:32 p.m. at Perry and Southard streets — Emmanuel was riddled with bullets and wandering in the darkness — and took him to Capital Health Regional Medical Center’s trauma unit. He died the next day.
Irvin E. Jackson Jr., 22, died April 9 after he was shot in an alley off North Hermitage Avenue in broad daylight.
Wilfredo Rivera, himself a convicted killer, was the victim of a fatal ambush in which he was shot multiple times outside the Roger Garden Apartments on Eisenhower Avenue on June 23. Douglas Battle was arrested in connection of the homicide.
The 5-year-old daughter of Dominique Smith, 22, and Masceo Emanuel, 25, of the 100 block of Passaic Street is on the list of the city’s 2012 homicide victims. Smith and Emanuel told police they had given the girl asthma medication on July 10 and allowed her to sleep in the living room. When they checked on her later and found she was not breathing, they called 911 and had her taken to the hospital, where she died shortly after midnight on July 11. Capital Health employees noticed healing wounds on the little girl’s body and fresh wounds to her face, officials said. After an autopsy revealed the child may have died from being severely beaten, the Mercer County prosecutor’s office charged both parents with the murder of their daughter.
David Lewis III was shot multiple times behind a home on East Paul Avenue on July 19. Police said the 23-year-old city resident died after a dice game among friends turned into an argument. Kevin Boone was arrested on July 25 and with Davis’ killing.
Semaj Kelly, 25, was the victim of a shooting near the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Ingham Avenue, on July 29.
Malique Potter, of Morrisville, Pa., was shot dead Aug. 21. Potter was standing in the first block of Oak Street at 9:54 p.m. when two men approached and said they wanted to buy marijuana, police said. The two men began to walk away but then one turned and shot Potter in the chest.
On Sept. 4, Neemias Reyes-Gonzalez was shot dead along a stretch of South Clinton Avenue that was the subject of police raids earlier in the summer. ReyesGonzalez himself was arrested in those raids and charged with promoting prostitution. On the night of the shooting, multiple gunmen burst into 803 S. Clinton Ave. and began firing, hitting the 37-year-old multiple times in the chest.
Orlando Sanchez, a resident of the first block of Elm Street, was shot on Sept. 8 near an alley off Chestnut Avenue. The 28-year-old city man was gunned down in broad daylight.
A 66-year-old man was found shot to death near City Hall just before the rush-hour commute into the city on Sept. 11. James Harris was shot in the chest. He was found unresponsive just after 5 a.m. near the intersection of North Stockton and East State streets, across from City Hall.
Nineteen-year-old Tre Lane was shot in the chest on Saturday around 3 a.m. on New Willow Street along with three others. Lane ran for cover at a nearby home on Kirkbride Avenue where he died. The other male and two females, were wounded.