Six people died in a shooting that lasted more than two hours Tuesday in the heart of Jersey City, a New Jersey town bordering New York, local officials said.
Michael Kelly, police chief of the city of 270,000 inhabitants, confirmed that a policeman and three civilians were killed, as well as the two suspects suspected of having started the shooting at midday, in a cemetery of the city.
Two other police officers were injured, he said during a press conference with the mayor of the city, stressing that the information was still “preliminary” and that the investigation would take time.
If the shooting started in a cemetery, the suspects then “moved in a rapid and continuous way in the district” during several hours, specified Mr. Kelly.
No clear reason has yet been given for the shooting, which turned a residential area of Jersey City into a scene of war for several hours: Hundreds of police officers from across the state of New Jersey and New York have were deployed in the streets, often armed to the teeth, and dozens of emergency vehicles deployed on several streets, according to an AFP photographer on the spot.
According to local media reports unconfirmed by police, the shooting started as a police officer, who was investigating a murder, approached the suspects in the cemetery. Identified as a detective by the name of Joe Seals, he died first.
The two suspects then took refuge in a grocery store, where the shooting continued. It is there that were found, after more than two hours of shooting, the bodies of two suspects and three civilians, indicated Mr. Kelly, without giving more details on these three victims.
A stolen rental van, which “could contain an incendiary device,” is currently being inspected by an explosives detection unit, police say.
Hundreds of shots were exchanged, NBC television claimed.
Schools and hospitals in the surrounding area were cordoned off as soon as the first reported gunfire was reported, as is the rule in the United States in the event of a shooting. Parents were only allowed to collect their children from schools around 5:00 p.m. local time (9:00 p.m. GMT).
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