Did you hear the one about the Barge Inn being a warzone?

A 14 year old boy with a gun shooting up a family. Does it get any worse?

death penalty, anyone?

I just wonder when our elected leaders will start incarcerating these criminals for life.

Newark shaken by 15 shootings over the past week

By VICTOR EPSTEIN |
Associated Press Writer
February 25, 2009

NEWARK, N.J. - Three shootings in less than a week _ with 15 victims _ are the latest challenge to Mayor Cory Booker's bid to improve public safety in Newark, which has long had a reputation for violence and drug sales.

In the most recent attack, five people are recovering from a shooting Tuesday night at a housing complex in which a 14-year-old boy is accused of firing the gun.

Seven people were wounded in a bar shooting Feb. 19 and three were shot Feb. 22 at the historic Robert Treat Hotel, an upscale venue normally spared such violence.

Newark recorded eight homicides and 28 shootings in the first 55 days of 2009, according to police. That compares with two homicides and 25 shootings during the same period last year. Still, this year is a far cry from the 16 homicides and 49 shootings that occurred during the same period in 2005, before Booker became mayor.

"It's horrific and unacceptable," Booker, who took office in July 2006, said of the recent violence. "We all have to rise up and condemn this."

Newark police estimate that 99 percent of gun-related violence in Newark is because of the city's illegal drug trade.

Newark drew national attention in October when a series of shootings led some neighboring football teams to cancel games at its high schools. The city was also the scene of the execution-style slayings of three college-bound friends at a school playground in 2007.

The city's violent reputation led producers of the documentary-style TV show "DEA" to advertise it as the setting for their second season, even though most of the arrests and seizures occurred elsewhere in northern New Jersey.

City leaders blamed the recent spike in shootings on a variety of sources Wednesday.

Booker and Police Director Garry McCarthy cited the prevalence of illegal handguns and a climate that is too willing to embrace violent solutions to minor disputes.

"These are people making stupid decisions to settle arguments," Booker said.

Newark Councilman Charles Bell blamed the recession. The city's unemployment rate surged to a 53-month high of 11.3 percent in December _ a 3.6 percent increase from the same period of 2007. The jobless rate in New Jersey was 6.8 percent in December.

"People are going to provide for their families by hook or crook _ they're going to do what they have to do to survive," Bell said. "We've got a lot of people out of work, and we have to find a way to create jobs for them."

Marsha Scott, a victim of Tuesday's shootings, said that neither the economy nor drugs played a role in the incident at the Georgia King Village housing complex in the city's West Ward.

She said the episode resulted from a misunderstanding between the 14-year-old, who lives in the complex, and her 20-year-old daughter, Shakirah Scott. The boy thought they were dating and became angry when he heard that Shakirah Scott was seeing someone else, she said.

Instead of talking it over, Scott said, he took a gun and fired into the crowded courtyard behind her home from the steps below.

"She won't be seeing him again," Marsha Scott said. "And we're moving out of here."

Newark police arrested the boy Wednesday morning at his home in the Georgia King Village housing complex in the city's West Ward. The boy, who was not identified because of his age, faces weapons and assault charges.

Scott said the attack left her 20-year-old nephew, Monty Scott, with one bullet wound in his chest and three in his leg, and left her uncle, Alfred Graham, 46, with three gunshot wounds in his arm. A neighbor was also wounded.

Scott's 16-year-old niece, Tanaisha Scott, was shot in the leg. Doctors had to break bones to remove the bullet.

Her niece remains hospitalized, Marsha Scott said Wednesday morning as two police officers sat in a cruiser a few feet from her townhouse in the low-income housing complex.

"I was grazed," Scott, 44, said as she lifted her shirt to reveal a bloody bandage around her right hip. "I didn't even see him until after he started shooting."